ground control
GROWND kun-TROHL
ɡraʊnd kənˈtroʊlListen
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Dictionary meaning
the team of engineers, flight directors, and specialists on Earth who monitor, command, and support a spacecraft or crewed mission in real time from a mission control facility; in extended use the phrase signals the presence of a stabilising, monitoring, or managing force that maintains oversight of a complex and potentially dangerous operation from a safe vantage point; made famous by David Bowie's 1969 song Space Oddity — Ground Control to Major Tom — the phrase carries additional cultural weight as a metaphor for the earthly anchors of routine, authority, and human connection that a person in an extreme or transcendent situation may feel slipping away; in everyday use ground control is invoked humorously to suggest that someone or something needs oversight or has lost contact with reality
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