This is supposed to happen tomorrow (CHT Reed Richter):
It looks a tad tricky.
If it succeeds, we can go into Randian rhapsodies about the triumph of human reason.
If it fails, we can go into Hayekian jeremiads about the fatal conceit of top-down planning.
So it’s all good.
Rand wins!
The ARI should issue a contest for the best Randian rhapsody.
Would it be anything like Bohemian Rhapsody?
Something closer to Hungarian Rhapsody would have been more to Rand’s liking, I believe.
As an engineer, nothing they did was especially tricky. The “wow factor” is built up by highlighting things like the entry temperature and entry speed. But there’s nothing complicated about a hot disc moving really fast. These physics are very well understood. If they were not well understood, such a remote mission could not be accomplished on a first attempt.
The part I’m most impressed with is progressing the algorithm correctly. If a maneuver kicks in at the wrong time, the whole thing could fail. Maybe… In reality they probably had fairly large windows of opportunity. But that doesn’t fit with the science-worship narrative everyone wants to tell.
Like, usually, when I’m debating someone and ask them to prove a claim, they do. But when I ask them to prove that the USA’s national labs don’t produce 99% garbage, no one thinks they have to. It’s just obvious that science = good.
I can’t eat Higgs Boson guys.