I remember reading, some years ago, about a conversation between a distinguished scientific programmer and the head of NASA, shortly after the first moon landing. He commented that he was amazed that such a complex program as that on the Lunar Lander worked well. The head of NASA confided that, in fact, the sign of gravity in the code was in with the wrong sign, and it was only discovered by accident the day before the launch.

Going to the moon was really cool, for sure. And we were very lucky. Hard to justify doing it again, even to Mars, with taxpayer dollars, considering the serious needs for health, defense, and infrastructure down here. Before robotic instruments were so capable, sending people to explore was the only way. Now we have had those two geology robots on Mars for YEARS and they work wonderfully. When everyone with a PC can Skype across the country so easily, it is hard to justify sending people on dangerous journeys. Moreover, it is very difficult to justify the enormous cost of human space flight, considering the trifling amount of actual scientific results from the Space Station. True believers will claim all sorts of major developments from the space program, and they are real. But adding humans to the space-flight equation increases the cost by at least two orders of magnitude, for zero gain.

We have to be careful when we talk about layoffs. When there are take-overs, the company that buys out another one will often look carefully to find those "at the top" who direct what is going on and make plans; and those "at the bottom," who actually do something. Then they look at those " in the middle" to try to figure out what value they add to the bottom line. The conclusion is, often, that the number of those in the middle seems to grow over time without adding very much. In fact they may be found to add negative value. If they are laid off, the company takes off and becomes profitable once again. (This is well documented) So the people in the middle are not bad people, or not doing their job well; the issue is that they are simply not essential to the main purpose of the company. Which can be a good warning to those in the middle.

You are correct except for one thing. If we didn't send people up there in the first place, we wouldn't need all this panic fixing. Those geology rovers on Mars have been there for how long? Sending people increases the complexity and cost enormously; but it is much more sexy and the PR guys think it necessary. Pity.

You'd really rather have the KGB looking over your shoulder rather than NSA? Surely you are joking.