In a year where turn of the century technology is used to successfully land a washing machine on a rotating piece of rock from a distance of 500,000,000 kilometres we see a single dilapidated crane on the back of a typical third world truck as the only available tool to assist the forensic recovery of aircraft parts. Spared no expense, just that math and physics are remote from politics when it doesn't concern resource allocation. Thirty odd years ago at a coffee table scientists started to seriously discuss the possibility of investigating the origins of life by landing on a comet. One can imagine a few bureaucrats and politicians needed to be convinced before green light was given and then the planning and construction could start. Imagine the plan was okayed and the scientists could go to work, first thing was to plan ahead, they would only launch their contraption in about 20 years and results of their endeavour would only come after their retirement. Incredible.
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| Rosetta Spread sheet |
You wonder how these wonderful minds were facilitated in their offices. Would the unit managers and flight directors have to book their own rooms? and when they did would they need to do this using a macroed spread sheet (sheet spread) because the booking system in Noordwijk did not match the booking system of Darmstadt? Would they for each room and time slot need to indicate whether they required a white board (rocket scientists use whiteboards don't they? and overheads, not beamers) and the ability to change furniture about? or wheelchair access? I would imagine there was a person in the team who just made this happen, in the background, either politely asking what was required for different occasions and meanwhile observing if some things could be improved and make suggestions for this. Once the scientists went to work, admin and facilities were there for them to work, not the other way around. Achievement was measured on output, not on calculated meeting hours or used furniture. This meant these people could work for years on end to arrive at one of mankinds greatest scientific achievments to date.
