In a post-landing press conference following the successful mission of the space shuttle Discovery, NASA Administrator Michael Griffin was challenged by a British journalist to explain how the American people could have confidence that disaster wouldn't strike the shuttle program in the future. His answer was much more interesting than the question.
At first, it seemed that he was just going to do a little bureaucrat's dance, shunting aside the question by saying in effect that what the American people can have confidence in is that NASA will give safety and success their best effort.
But then he appeared to regain his footing and went into a statement of how difficult manned space flight is. He said that, even with the best efforts of all concerned, with all the resources devoted to it, all the gifted people dedicating their lives to it, putting people into space and bringing them back again is still "just barely possible."
I was struck by the honesty of that statement. And it also made me wonder about other tasks we undertake (everything from "building witnessing communities" to building useful and beautiful websites). It can be easy to focus on the ways in which our limitations, shortages, or failures can contribute to a failed mission. (And just like NASA, we shouldn't stop short of looking very hard at those things.) But it's also true that often what we're trying to do is "just barely possible" — if it's even humanly possible at all.
Posted by Jon on August 15, 2005 01:34 PMAnd we should ask ourselves: Do we have the courage to push ourselves to do things that are just barely possible?
Posted by: Andy Wetzel at May 8, 2006 11:46 PM