[cvq3842]

I read once that the Shuttle has 2 million parts. So if they are operating 99.9% flawlessly, there are still, what, 2000 parts not working . . .

[Young Werther]

Werner von Braun once made a similar statement regarding the Apollo moon rocket. His point was that nothing is perfect. You can specify that 99.999% will work and that over 1,000 parts will fail but the mission will succeed since redundancy is included in the engineering plans!

The Shuttle program had been underfunded by Congress throughout its life. Had the tile system been upgraded as planned we wouldn't have lost Columbia! Had the white paint which was used on the first few shuttle flights not been eliminated to increase the payload capacity by about one ton we would not have lost Columbia! Human error is the usual problem that cannot be overcome by redundancy factors since fvck-ups are uncalculable!!

[Phsstpok]

I read once that the Shuttle has 2 million parts. So if they are operating 99.9% flawlessly, there are still, what, 2000 parts not working . . .

There are lots of variations to these quotes, but you both forgot to include the punch line:

2 million parts that all have to work perfectly and were all built by the lowest bidder!