20 April 2021 - bureaucratic risk

If it has to work, talk about how much you’ve done to be sure it will. You pretend it’s safe, with just enough leeway to back out in case you were wrong. See the awesomely complex, risky, and delayed James Webb Space Telescope. If it could fail but you’re fairly confident that it won’t, talk about the amazing risk you’re accepting, like the seven minutes of terror of an almost routine landing on Mars, or the easier helicopter flight, “it’s just a test, it doesn’t have to succeed.”