I don’t have much time to write, but fortunately some of my readers do.

Mitchell Burnside Clapp, of Pioneer Rocketplane, has been commenting on spacesuit gloves in the previous post, but he also passes along some comments, via email, about how much smarter we are now than we were in the sixties.

I was thinking recently about NASA and its desire to invest heavily in new technologies to develop better launch vehicles. I know this is worthy work and that NASA’s charter requires them to do a fair bit of this sort of thing, but I can’t help be reminded of the kids who spend a hundred bucks on top of the line basketball shoes in the hopes that it will give them game.

You get game by doing the work. You get it by doing a hundred thousand free throws. You get it by running your legs into jelly until you can drive the lane. You get it by doing something other than layups at practice because anyone can make those shots and you don’t always get them in real games. You get it by trying and failing and trying and failing and repeating the process until the ball goes swish, every single time.

It doesn’t come from the shoes.

Okay, I’ll get down off my metaphorical high-horse. Truth to tell, I suck at basketball. My strategy is always, ‘pass the ball to the tall kid.’

But I’ve faced this a bunch of times in my own life. Haven’t we all?

Ever say:

I’m not going to do a classical methods analysis because the fancy software I can’t afford will solve it with a mouse click.

I’m not going to go jogging today because that promotional deal at the gym starts next month.

I’m having the cr