Word.ws English Dictionary

steely-eyed missile man

Syllables: steely-eyed mis·sile manUK/ˈstiːliˌaɪd ˈmɪsaɪl ˌmæn/US/ˈstiliˌaɪd ˈmɪs(ə)l ˌmæn/

steely-eyed missile man noun: an astronaut or engineer who quickly comes up with a solution to a difficult problem while under extreme pressure.

steely-eyed missile man: an astronaut or engineer who quickly comes up with a solution to a difficult problem while under...
Image: NASA, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

steely-eyed missile man (plural steely-eyed missile men)

  1. (US, humorous, often, slang) An astronaut or engineer who quickly comes up with a solution to a difficult problem while under extreme pressure.
    • The "hold" in the countdown of a rocket firing has a long and infamous history. It doubtless is as old as the "countdown" itself. We Brevardians have seen thousands upon thousands of pictures of countdowns in progress, of green lights flashing, green buttons being pushed, fuming LOX [liquid oxygen]...1973 May 13, Emsley Armfield, “Picture this … a countdown stops”, in Brevard Sentinel: An Edition of the Orlando Sentinel Star, Orlando, Fla.: Sentinel Star Co., →OCLC, page 4, column 4
    • Among the men in the Canaveral blockhouse and the Houston control room, there was no greater tribute a controller could be paid than to describe him, in the rough poetry of the rocketry community, as a "steely-eyed missile man." There weren't many steely-eyed missile men in the nasa family....1994, Jim Lovell, Jeffrey Kluger, chapter 6, in Lost Moon: The Perilous Voyage of Apollo 13, Boston, Mass.; New York, N.Y.: Houghton Mifflin Company, →ISBN, page 157

Examples of steely-eyed missile man in a sentence

  • Added [Tom] Hanks: "Maybe in the sequel we'll show how they go doo-doo." Spoken like a steely-eyed missile man.1995 July 3, Richard Corliss, “Hell of a Ride: With Tom Hanks as the Pilot, Apollo 13 is a Stirring Tribute to the Heroes who Fly High in...
  • “Message reads: ‘Houston, be advised: Rich Purnell is a steely-eyed missile man’.” / “What?” Brendan asked.2011, Andy Weir, chapter 16, in The Martian, New York, N.Y.: Crown Publishing Group, published 2014, →ISBN, page 213:
  • D[avid] M[arshall]: […] Tell me about your steely-eyed missile man nickname. […] J[ohn] A[aron]: Well you know, I ran across the term, steely-eyed missile man a year before that.2017 October 26, John Aaron, interviewee; David Marshall, interviewer, Oral History Interview of John Aaron (NASA Interview Project)...

Forms of steely-eyed missile man

pluralsteely-eyed missile men

Origin of steely-eyed missile man

From steely-eyed (“having a hard, strong, and determined mentality or mindset”) + missile + man. Probably popularized by the 1994 book Lost Moon: The Perilous Voyage of Apollo 13, by American astronaut Jim Lovell (1928–2025) and American author and journalist Jeffrey Kluger (born 1954), as well as the 1995 film, Apollo 13, based on the book. The film has capsule communicator 1 “Andy” (portrayed by Brett Cullen) tell a technician (Walter von Huene), whose team had devised a solution to a problem with the spacecraft's carbon dioxide filters, “You, sir, are a steely-eyed missile man.” The book implies that the term had been in use at least since the early years of NASA, which was established in 1958: see the quotation.

Questions about steely-eyed missile man

What does steely-eyed missile man mean?
Steely-eyed missile man means an astronaut or engineer who quickly comes up with a solution to a difficult problem while under extreme pressure.
How do you use steely-eyed missile man in a sentence?
Added [Tom] Hanks: "Maybe in the sequel we'll show how they go doo-doo." Spoken like a steely-eyed missile man.
What part of speech is steely-eyed missile man?
Steely-eyed missile man is a noun.
How do you pronounce steely-eyed missile man?
Steely-eyed missile man is pronounced /ˈstiːliˌaɪd ˈmɪsaɪl ˌmæn/ (UK).
What is the plural of steely-eyed missile man?
The plural of steely-eyed missile man is steely-eyed missile men.

Words near steely-eyed missile man in the dictionary

  1. steely
  2. steely hair disease
  3. steely iron
  4. steely irons
  5. steely-eyed
  6. steely-eyed missile man
  7. steely-eyed missile men
  8. steely-nerved
  9. steely-spined
  10. steelyard
  11. steelyard balance

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: steely-eyed missile man (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-steely-eyed missile man.ogg.

Cite this entry: “steely-eyed missile man.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/steely-eyed_missile_man. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.