"Cutting-edge" Technology Blunted. (Forum on Science & Technology).(major faults in innovation)

In the May 1950 issue of Popular Science, aviation journalist Devon Francis simply raved about the world's first commercial jet airliner, the British swept-wing "Comet" developed and built by de Havilland. Said Francis: "The jet airliners will fly at 40,000 feet, which is twice as high as conventional, pressurized air liners now fly. The clouds will all be below you. There'll be so little vibration that you'll be able to stand a pencil on end anywhere in the ship, and no noise." Francis cited several advanced technologies used in the plane's development, including "the most elaborate pressurizing equipment ever put into a commercial airplane" and windows designed to resist being fatally blown out by cabin pressurization at 40,000 feet.

Unfortunately, within two years after the Comet had entered service (in April 1952), three of the planes had disintegrated in flight, tragically ending the lives of more than 100 passengers and crew. Investigators determined that the Comets had been brought down by structural failure, specifically "defects in the design of its pressurized fuselage."

Although jet airliners have become perhaps the safest means of transportation, statistically speaking, early models such as the ill-fated Comet were sometimes doomed to fail despite their advanced, or "cuttingedge," characteristics. But Francis, like many others who publicize scientific and engineering breakthroughs, was inclined to write only about success, not ...