There is no joy for your reporter, then, in reporting on the program's failures. But I wonder if this is the way to view them. True, there are colossal blunders, like the botched metric conversion that doomed the Mars Climate Orbiter. They have, at times, made it look easy. But it isn't.
Luck plays a big role.
As one scientist pointed out, the Mars Polar Lander could have simply landed on a boulder, and toppled over. We should understand that these folks work on the bounds of the possible, where things don't always go to plan. And that's probably just where they should be. Copyright 2000, CBS Worldwide Inc., All Rights Reserved.