Test Failure Quotes

I didn't pass my driving test till I was 38!

And I really wanted a driver's license. I was 43, had my learner's permit and had failed the test once already - but that was in Riverhead, on Long Island.

Failing my driving test first time; that was a disappointment on a geological scale.

The U.S's first ballistic missile test was a complete disaster. The Atlas Missile Program, which began in the early 1950s, attempted its first ballistic missile launch on June 11, 1957. The rocket flew for 24 seconds before blowing up. It took two more years before the first successfully armed test flight took place.

How can you fail a test you aren't allowed to prepare for?

Spaceflight will never tolerate carelessness, incapacity, and neglect. Somewhere, somehow, we screwed up. It could have been in design, build, or test. Whatever it was, we should have caught it. We were too gung ho about the schedule and we locked out all of the problems we saw each day in our work. Every element of the program was in trouble and so were we. The simulators were not working, Mission Control was behind in virtually every area, and the flight and test procedures changed daily.

If a proposal doesn't prove out as expected when we run it, sometimes we change the model.

Foul-ups in testing are not uncommon, especially when the test setup is being tried for the first time.