“To put this into perspective… The Sirius has 5,600,000 parts and close to a million systems, subsystems, and assemblies. Even if everything was 99.9 percent reliable, that would still be 5,600 defects. It wasn’t a question of if something would go wrong on the way to the moon, it was a question of when and what.”
This book has been on my to-read list for years. I somehow never picked it up. That paragraph above is the perfect encapsulation of why I love this book so much. I will try to explain. But honestly I was hooked upon reading the first page.
I found a used copy at Boskone. I knew that the title and author were familiar, that I’d been meaning to read the book, but then I thumbed the thing open and… here, try this for your first two paragraphs:
Damn this is a good movie. I saw it last week, and neglected to tell you because I was busy getting ready for Arisia. This movie made me furious, it made me happy, it made me cry… and it is a story that deserves to be told. I strongly recommend not only watching it, but also staying through the end credits to see the further stories of the people this movie is all about.
I’m sure that there’s some conflation and massaging of truth going on here, with composite characters and such, if only because this holds together so well as a movie and life doesn’t really work that way. But from everything that I understand, this movie hews closely to the real stories of these people’s lives. It also is a truly excellent movie.
With that in mind, do yourself a favor. Go watch Hidden Figures. Enjoy.
Fistful of Wits 