downshift

i watched a documentary about the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) today

this thing is a complete marvel of engineering, but the wildest thing about it is that the launch and deployment consisted of at least 344 distinct single points of failure, any of which could have caused the entire mission to fail as this elaborate apparatus precisely unfurled and calibrated itself in space

they went 344 for 344…absolutely mind-boggling (and even the engineers themselves acknowledge there was a lot of luck at play here)