wish to hell I could understand it.

My friend, mentioned in the first reply, before he founded Olin College worked for JPL for a while. As you know I'm a 'space nut' so I inundated him with questions. He described his job this way: "I figure out how to fold things". I know, doesn't sound that exciting... but as he explained I was truly in awe. It's origami on steroids.

The most apparent example would be, of course, solar sails.... how to fold them for minimal space, (stored for launch), and then in a no-gravity environment unfold them. But this also pertains to nearly all the equipment involved in a space project.