“The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design.”
Intended as a warning against command economies and centralized structures more generally, because the information-processing requirements are much larger than one might expect. But of course there are few things more central-planning than a space programme.
In this case a broader reading is an exhortation to guard against intellectual hubris. Through its various trials NASA seems like a good organization for learning from error and not accepting easy answers (except when they have to terrible results), and in this siloxane story I'm glad to see evidence of institutional curiosity that I could not have drempt up.
“The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design.”
Intended as a warning against command economies and centralized structures more generally, because the information-processing requirements are much larger than one might expect. But of course there are few things more central-planning than a space programme.