I wonder if Graceās importance as a part of the PHM team made it a shock to people that he ājoinedā the Hail Mary crew on the doomed mission.
Everyone involved in the project saw him as Strattās second in command, he was the worlds leading expert on Astrophage, the person to name them, the person to discover what they were made of and so much more. He was of the upmost importance in the project even if he didnāt see himself that way.
I have to imagine even if he saw himself going back to teaching, most of the project probably expected him to stay in some sort of research role, some of them probably thought with time and funding he might have been able to come up with a solution without leaving the planet.
A lot of them probably never even considered the idea of putting him on the ship because he was so valuable in the field, even after losing Dubois and Shapiro. Keep researching in the mean time and donāt put all your eggs in one basket style.
Some of them might even have been shocked Stratt āallowed him to volunteerā.
























