Jinn of Quality and Risk

Uranus is the seventh planet from the Sun and the third largest in the solar system. It has an equatorial diameter of 51,800 km and orbits the Sun once every 84 Earth years. It has been visited by one spacecraft, Voyager 2 on 1986-Jan-24.

Uranus was the first planet discovered in modern times, identified by British astronomer William Herschel on 1781-Mar-13. It had been seen many times before, but was believed to be a star. William Herschel (1738-1822) is also famous for his catalog of more than 800 binary stars and 2,500 nebulae. He was the first person to correctly describe the form of our Galaxy, The Milky Way. The Herschel family had a century-long relationship with the Royal Observatory in Greenwich. 

In all certainty, we are fast approaching the singularity. Scientists have developed the first artificial region of the brain -- a silicon chip that mimics the hippocampus, an area that controls memory, mood, and awareness. A first application could be a prosthesis to help people with brain damage. It is a creation of researchers at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. 

A NASA program manager refused to obtain additional information in order to assess potential damage to the space shuttle and thereby evaluate risks while it was in orbit. His actions reveal two fundamental, epistemological errors: making conclusions while ignoring crucial evidence (some people later decided that there was no risk to the Columbia, without actually examining the damaged wing) and evaluating risk without reality-based probability and impact (images of the shuttle could have shown the damage, and such observation would have confirmed that re-entry may result in a total failure).

It is usually sound practice to first collect the evidence in order to determine if a threat exists. However, the NYT reports that two or three days after the space shuttle Columbia's liftoff, a group of NASA engineers asked the shuttle program manager to request the aid of United States spy satellites in determining the extent of debris damage to the shuttle's left wing, but the manager declined to do so...

Program managers ought to be highly competent in logic, objectivity, and risk management. Where is Richard Feynman?