A year ago, we were getting ready to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the first Moon landing.
In a thrilling and ridiculous effort, I wrote 50 pieces in 50 days, for @FastCompany leading up to that anniversary, July 20, 1969 — all about what it was like to fly to the Moon.
2/ Going to the Moon was itself a thrilling and ridiculous effort.
When Kennedy said 'to the Moon!' in May 1961, it was an impossible task.
98 months later, Armstrong & Aldrin were bouncing around on the Moon.
3/ The race to the Moon required the best of Americans. And not just the best of American leaders.
It required the best of ordinary Americans.
Because it was ordinary Americans who did the work to get Armstrong & Aldrin to the Moon — inspired by the mission & the work.
4/ The race to the Moon is, in that way, the perfect story alongside the times we're living in now.
In the 1960s, we changed the world. Not just the world of space travel.
Civil rights. Education. Poverty. Feminism. Space travel. Rock and roll.
1969 and 1959 were an era apart.
5/ Over the next 50 days, I'm going to re-fire each of those '50 Days to the Moon' pieces (which are permanently collected on their own pages @FastCompany).
The people who took us to the Moon were bold & imaginative & determined — and also just like us.
Fascinating element of Harvard's refusal to buckle to the Trump Administration today.
Who are Harvard's lawyers in this matter?
#1 is Robert K. Hur.
Sound familiar? Trump named him US Attorney for Maryland.
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2/ Then Robert Hur was the special counsel who investigated Pres. Biden's mishandling of classified documents. Hur as the one who said Biden was 'an elderly man with a poor memory.' And declined to charge Biden.
That's Harvard lawyer #1.
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3/ Harvard lawyer #2 is William A. Burck.
Currently a member of the Board of Directors of Fox Corp., the owner of FoxNews.
Burck served as special counsel to the Republican House task force that investigated the attempted assassination of Pres. Trump.
Could Trump's tariffs spark a US factory & manufacturing renaissance?
Let's say they do.
Here's the problem, even if we double the number of factories the US has now. Even if we—somehow—start making microwave ovens and pleated-front chinos and pillow cases in the US again.
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2/ There won't be many jobs.
Factory automation for routine, repetitive manufacturing is very far along.
It's so widespread that there's a phrase in the manufacturing world:
'Lights-out factories.'
…Factories with so few people, they keep the lights off.
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3/ Machines don't need lights. So many big companies—including consumer products companies like Unilever, Procter & Gamble, Foxconn—run factories with just a scattering of staff who monitor the machines.
Like in a quiet office, the lights only come on when a person walks in.
Here's the thing that might happen with Trump's tariffs.
It's not 1893. It's not 1933.
We—the United States—have spent 50 years creating a web of global trade, an interwoven global economy.
Now, Trump is using garden shears to cut the US out of that network.
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2/ We've been the indispensable trade partner—the US is 26% of global GDP, and a great place to sell your stuff. We have well-off consumers with plenty of disposable income.
But if Trump is unbending, the world could simply comply—and trade among themselves.
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3/ We are 26% of the global market. But that means 74% of the global market is out there without us.
Including all of the EU, whose unified economy is almost the size of the US, with similar consumers. And the Chinese economy.
On the bridge of the container ship Dali, 4 minutes from disaster, there's one critical moment we haven't heard about yet.
The very moment the ship lost power the 1st time.
What did the pilot do, right then?
His first thought, apparently, was safety — the bridge looming ahead.
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⤵️ NTSB photo of the bridge of the Dali...
2/ The 1st 'event' leading up to the collision that the NTSB notes in its timeline is 1:24:59—when alarms on the bridge indicate power failure.
The ship was without electricity, engine power, lights, navigation, radio.
Dali was dark, literally & in terms of communications.
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3/ The first thing the pilot did — apparently within the first 30 to 60 seconds of the ship going dark — was take out his cell phone and call harbor pilot dispatch.
He told his dispatcher: We've lost power, close the bridge. Close the bridge.