Golden Fleece hangs from an apple tree. Jason's helper in the Athenian vase-paintings is not Medea— who had a history in Athens as the opponent of Theseus— but Athena. The very early origin of the myth in preliterate times means that during the more than a millennium when it was to some degree part of the fabric of culture, its perceived significance likely passed through numerous developments. Several euhemeristic attempts to interpret the Golden Fleece "realistically" as reflecting some physical cultural object or alleged historical practice have been made. For example, in the 20th century, some scholars suggested that the story of
Golden Fleece Award failure in research is essential and that fear of failure would distort the way researchers choose projects, which would ultimately impede progress. Winners of the Golden Fleece Award included governmental organizations like the United States Department of Defense, Bureau of Land Management, and National Park Service; research projects have been particularly well represented. The National Science Foundation (NSF) won the first Golden Fleece Award for spending $84,000 on a study on love. Proxmire reasoned that: The Federal Aviation Administration was named for spending $57,800 on a study of the physical measurements of 432 airline stewardesses, that included the "distance from