Caldwell Johnson, speaking as a designer of the spacecraft, explained it. He knew about the checks and balances and all the other people working on the design who were bound to catch a major error. But still, he said, “after a while, you really become appalled that you’ve gotten yourself involved in the thing. At first, it’s an academic exercise. And then the first thing you know, there’s people building these things, and they are really getting ready to do it, and you start thinking: Have I made a real bad judgment somewhere, and the damn thing is just not going to work at all?”
