Catálogo de publicaciones - libros

Rocket scientists, after they are finished dreaming, go through three stages called design, build, and test. The design may start innocuously with a sketch on a paper napkin during lunch. Before actually building a spacecraft, more accurate drawings, namely blueprints, must be made.

A powerful method of simplifying is to make up “handles” for new problems; that is, to create a nomenclature. Human beings are the world champions at doing this—inventing language. In fact, every individual human being has the capacity to create language.

The preferred method of virtually all science is to break a problem down to its simplest component parts: to look at the little picture. Although sometimes referred to disparagingly as “reductionism,” there can be little doubt of its success or power.

If you can convert your problem into a math problem, then you have done two things: (1) you have simplified the problem and (2) you have brought the full power of mathematics to bear on your problem. Translating a problem into a mathematical one is called mathematical modeling. Once a math model is chosen (which means that certain specific assumptions are made), there are centuries of mathematical techniques that can be used to answer your question. In this way, you tap the brains of mathematicians who have already solved your problem.

Occam’s razor states that the simplest explanation is probably the correct one.

Everyone wants to save a buck. In this chapter and the next, I diverge from the ordinary-life lesson and talk about how rocket scientists try to save time and money.

The concept behind optimal space trajectories (e.g. the cheapest way to get into orbit) came to us from the Bernoulli brothers. In the seventeenth century, James and John Bernoulli amused and challenged each other by inventing mathematical puzzles for the other to solve. It was typical sibling rivalry carried to extremes. The game reached its zenith when one of the brothers proposed what is now called the “Brachistochrone problem.” (Consider it the brontosaurus of mathematics.) The name derives from the Greek roots that appear in brachiopod and chronology, so it translates to the “shortest time” problem.

Mr. Spock of the original TV series Star Trek is the classic Analyst. He is driven by logic and firmly believes—actually he knows—there is one best way to do things. In The Art of Thinking , Allen Harrison and Robert Bramson describe the Analyst as one of the five styles of thinking. (Ranging from right brain to left, these are personified as the Synthesist, the Idealist, the Pragmatist, the Analyst, and the Realist.) But Gene Roddenberry depicted the Analyst earlier—in the character of Mr. Spock. Spock was brought to life by the acute interpretation of Leonard Nimoy who wrote two memoirs about his experience that seem to highlight his ambivalence about the role, perhaps due to the internal schism of the character: I Am Not Spock and I Am Spock .

When Dan Goldin became NASA administrator in 1992, NASA was facing a crisis: cut costs or go out of existence. It was under this extreme pressure that Goldin hatched his slogan, “Faster, Better, Cheaper,” and sold it to Congress. Goldin’s idea was born out of self-preservation; fierce political winds were blowing and only the strong would survive. Goldin came up with his three-pronged optimal solution: NASA would be “the best” by all three measures.

Sometimes bigger is better. The economy size is cheaper by the pound, the gallon, the dozen. We all look for bargains in volume.