OnSpace: The Importance of Failure | Aviation Week

By Jeffrey Manber, Aviation Week , Posted 01/14/10

Link: http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/blogs/space/index.jsp?plckController=Blog&plck...

"Last night I spoke at a really good workshop hosted by the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University.  The subject was small satellites, and Kirk Woellert, under the able guidance of Dr. Scott Pace, pulled together a high-energy group of speakers to go off on a very high energy topic: small satellites, CubeSats and how they are changing us, and we are changing NASA and the space program. "

"The speakers highlighted how important is failure to any reseach program. NASA spends years designing every tiny aspect of research hardware to assure no failure in equipment or result. But taking risk in a research program means allowing failure. And failure is good if there is the chance for repeating the experiment, trying something new, trying again, until you get it right."