QUESTION: 
If you do these flights at night, when do you sleep?

ANSWER from Juan Rivera on May 5:
Well, working at night for me is tough.  Especially since I am
always switching my hours around.  I fly all the missions on a particular
week - usually two or three, then I switch back to day shift.  So I end up
leaving for work one week at about 5:30AM, and then maybe the next week I
leave for work at 10:00 PM!  Argh!  It's very hard to adjust to the
constant changes.  After a flight I try very hard to get home before the
sun comes up.  If I can get in bed while it's still dark I can usually get
to sleep pretty easily but I have trouble sleeping more than about 4 hours.
So I wake up and stumble around for a while and then it's usually time to
go back to work again anyway.  Did I mention that on a week when I'm
flying that I work a 4:00 to midnight shift on the non-flight days?  BY
the end of the week I'm usually toast.

There are four telescope operators on the project and we all have the
same problems with job burnout after a few years of this.  We have been
talking with our bosses about changing the shifts around so we would not
have to come in to work at all on the day after a flight.  We would work
extra hours before a flight instead.  I think that might be a big
improvement.

Juan Rivera - Airborne Telescope Operator - Kuiper Airborne Observatory