By then, Richard Feynman, too, was dead, but his blunt conclusion in Appendix F had became famous. His words had proved prophetic, and provided an epitaph not only for NASA’s heroic goals with the National Space Transportation System, but for many of the historic catastrophes caused by mankind’s overconfidence in his own ingenuity. For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, Feynman wrote, for nature cannot be fooled.
