I just got an email from a friend who saw it on line, so I went and looked it up. Here it is.
I was originally supposed to lead off, but the moderator rearranged things so I ended up batting clean up, and it ended up well. Sercel told me that he was going to talk about some of the things that I did, but dropped them in the interest of time, so all our talks ended up being complementary. A lot of the audience told me later that the panel discussion (the first time space had ever been a topic at this event) “blew their minds.” It was the first time I’d ever met General Kwast, but he has been talking up my book to many people.
I took a ride in an airplane today, for the first time since early March. We’re in Kansas City, driving up to Omaha tomorrow for an event where I’m speaking on Friday. Posting may be light.
I wonder at what point the company will just pull the plug on Starliner? They’ve been spectacularly unimpressive, Andy Pasztor’s worship aside.
I mean, if Starship goes to orbit before they have their crewed test flight, even NASA has to say, OK, maybe we don’t need a backup from them for Dragon.
If it makes you feel any better, next year may be worse.
Perrow writes about how the failure of a complex, highly-coupled system can be catastrophic. I used his book, Normal Accidents, as a source for my book.