Moments like this remind me exactly why the hairs on my arms stand up every time I see the NASA logo. It’s not just science, it’s the amazing inspiring human achievement. Incredible work, NASA team.
We could just all agree that exploitation of others is wrong and unacceptable and severely punish those that try to exploit vulnerable people. But no, defauding Granny for her entire retirement is acceptable behavior now.
For every Climate Orbiter "we made an oopsie converting metric to imperial" story, there are three "we figured out how to get the crew of Apollo 13 to fit a square peg into a round hole and they can breath now" miracles.
I mean, sure, there's Apollo 1's "we put people and a bunch of wires in a pressurized can of pure oxygen", but there's also the Perseverance Rover's "we made a crane that holds itself aloft with rockets and lowers a one ton rover gently to the ground on a tether."
Unfortunately I just can’t leave this whole “Imperial vs Metric” thing alone so here comes a tangent.
> "we made an oopsie converting metric to imperial"
US Customary*. The United States has never used the Imperial system. It didn’t even exist at the time of the revolution.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_the_imperial_a...
Also since I’m already being pedantic Mars Climate Orbiter was not lost to a conversion error. US Customary units were provided by Lockheed software to a NASA system that expected SI units. It would not have been lost if either system was used consistently.
That’s what happens when engineers are allowed to engineer things, rather than being forced to “move fast and break things”.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Challenger_disas...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Columbia_disaste...
The Apollo flights in particular were interesting. For example, in the case of Apollo 14, when Houston was literally reading new machine code to the astronauts over radio who were punching in POKE instructions by hand to change the code.
And Challenger.
Every now and then we watch/read in the news that # of workers died while building that bridge/road/building/etc. We don't stop making bridges/roads/buildings. We just make it safer. Will people continue dying unnecessary/unnatural deaths? Unfortunately, yes. Let's minimise this.
They were so thrilled when he launched a car into space with a manakin playing music. Like, who does that?? But it is simply inspiring to children. The next generation of engineers are going to see him as a hero.
I think Musk never lost his boyish wonder at the universe. Not even extreme wealth could take it away from him. I’m very thankful to have him as a role model for my children. Does he do things I disagree with? Yes. But I’m not going to destroy their hero because he is having a very positive, enabling influence on them.
It is so fulfilling to have my child say “Daddy can I show you my plans for building a train?” and hear them connect that curiosity and wonder with “like Elon Musk’s rockets, daddy.”