The foundation says the project would cost no more than setting up a museum, an opera theatre, or academic building - all of which succeed in attracting the support of private benefactors.
"It's a world of difference, the way the technology has moved," said Edward L. Wilkinson, project manager of the 1984 system, which succeeded after three failures.
He temporarily became the Chief of the Medical Section of the Atomic Energy Commission, the civilian agency which succeeded the Manhattan Project.
Which succeeded nicely, apparently.
Deciphering the human genome was probably the most ambitious project, which actually succeeded in the year 2000 [ 2].
When money is tight, the tendency is to fund only projects that seem guaranteed to succeed; this in turn discourages scientists from tackling major, potentially boundary-shattering projects, which are inherently risky.
Do you have a sense, going into a new project, which is going to succeed and which might have longer odds?
The aim of the project, which seems to have succeeded, was to generate a massive algae bloom.
Which will succeed and which will fail?
Instead of desiring that some project of mine succeed, which is a desire that might be thwarted by my death, I might instead adopt a conditionalized version of this desire, namely: should I live on, let my project succeed.
The economist was interested in all the ways in which projects managed to succeed, both in spite of and because of the difficulties: Instead of asking: what benefits [has] this project yielded, it would almost be more pertinent to ask: how many conflicts has it brought in its wake?
