10 years ago, I might have agreed with you.
But, with SpaceX and other private companies venturing into space? I feel like humans are doing pretty well.
But, with SpaceX and other private companies venturing into space? I feel like humans are doing pretty well.
For example, when I stand in front of an SR-71 Blackbird and consider that it was created w/ slide rules & Friden mechanical calculators. When sophisticated automated design and analysis tools like FEA and CFD were still far, far away. It conjures a narrative for me, true or not, that they seemed to do so much with so little, and by contrast we seem to do so little with so much. Which results in a crude emotional response that is some hybrid of awe & despair.
Then a few days goes by, and I snap out of it.
My worry is that people who think "move fast and break things" is a good business strategy are now starting to move into transport, medicine, and other fields where the lives of random citizens are on the line.
Anyone's risk, even if there's no risk at all. Post on Reddit about how you replaced your own water heater and people will wag their finger at you for not having a licensed plumber do it all (as if the plumber would stop by the next day to check for leaks). People get off on trying to score virtue points virtue signaling about risk (not just on the internet, in real life too).
The Christmas tree (or do I have to call it a holiday tree because the "risk" of offending someone is too great) across the room from me might spontaneously catch fire. It probably won't happen so I don't care, that won't stop some anonymous stranger on the internet telling me I should use modern LED lights because they run cooler.
I understand not playing fast and loose with people's lives but the likelihood and magnitude of a possible bad outcome required to stall things has been getting smaller and smaller over the years and it makes getting anything and everything done more time consuming and costly. Before you could just put up a Christmas tree in the office if everyone wanted to, now you have to figure out if anyone could hypothetically be offended. Before you could just build a road or a bridge and deal with the environmental impact as it happens, now you have to do a study and account for the whereabouts of every drop of rainwater that will fall on whatever you're building before you even break ground.
There is a risk of a potential bad outcome inherit to everything. Somehow society has perverted itself into thinking that risk is a binary and all risk is bad and not work it.
Sensationalist journalism coupled with ability of the Internet to amplify the worst. If an astronaut died back then, maybe a few tabloids could have screamed in horror, while every other media would have depicted the tragedy as what it was: a highly trained professional who lost his life while doing something amazing but very dangerous whose risks he was well aware of. Today a tragic event like that one would produce such a level of trash that its effects could undermine political campaigns or have perfectly healthy businesses go belly up. It's just too risky.
The F-35 seems to my non-expert eye to have been poorly conceived but creating a more versatile aircraft instead of a bunch of more specialized ones is not inherently a stupid idea.
And for a military aircraft I guess the answer will always be 'really good'.
China may get to the mass-produced stage, but that's stil debatable, since they have issues with their engines.
And still I'd say - yes, it's better.
Isn't that an oxymoron?
Of course the design of the APC in your clip is only the opening of the disaster. Once it got to testing before the actual acquisition things got even more ridiculous to the point that I think people should have clearly been prosecuted for reason. But as Boyd said: You can either do something or be someone.
Did no technology programmes in the 60s fail or have limited success? All of them were complete triumphs?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:NASA-Budget-Federal.svg
Nowadays money gets thrown at other things, stuff is still happening.
https://www.sr-71.org/blackbird/locations.php
Of course, they've been gutted of electronics and engines, but still, anybody can walk right up to one with calipers and a tape measure... Good luck affording that much titanium though. It's a PITA to form and weld, too.
For some the end of the shuttle program was a downer but it was probably the single best thing to have happened to NASA in decades. the Shuttle program if anything held NASA back. The investment alone made it near impossible to not use it and the cost of using it doomed money for other development.
Now we have Space X with a record number of launches, China going to the dark side of the moon, and even more private corporations reaching for space. We still have cooperation with Russia not withstanding all the political strife caused by their leadership. The EU has had great missions recently and even India is moving forward.