NASA was a pioneer in the development of systems science—the development of methods to manage enormously complex operations. The development of systems science and engineering over the decades went hand in hand with improvements in software engineering.
Read MoreIt really wasn’t that long ago when the two greatest superpowers were vying to put satellites into space. Now, 50 nations have their own satellites in low Earth orbit. If you’re a Thailand, say, you can call Space Systems/Loral, a Canadian-owned company based in Palo Alto, California, and tell them you want to put a satellite into geostationary orbit for television broadcasting or military communications. You can have the thing in orbit 25,000 miles above Earth within two years.
