Relearning History

Today I will snap my fingers and my team will suddenly become knowledgeable about all the engineering details of all previous space flight projects.

[snap]

Did it work? Do I get to avoid repeating history now? Do I get to avoid spending money building a competent engineering team that gives me an edge over my competitors?

[sigh]

I guess not. It looks like I am doomed to repeat history and learn how to do what's been done before including many of the mistakes. My only choice to avoid that fate appears to be option to do nothing since I could then wait for the teams that do have that experience to open the space frontier for me. What's that I hear? They don't have the engineering experience either? Those engineers are dead or in retirement? How can we have reached such a sorry state?

Jeffrey Bell is at it again at Space Daily. Some people just don't get it when it comes to operating an engineering team and trying to innovate. There is no magic except for the power of a functional team over a group of individuals. You can read his rant about the XPrice Cup event if you want to here.