One of the problems with space exploration is that we never have enough iterations to allow us to fully learn from our mistakes. When it takes five years to launch and then two more to realize success or failure, there’s a time constant that defeats learning. By the time the deepest truths emerge, most of the humans who were in on the creation very likely have moved on. If we hire a contractor that saves us millions but in the end their work fails, it’s hard to know what caused the failure, because we don’t do enough missions to gather the right kind of statistics, so we’re left with too much
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