Quote of the Day

In the 1950s, [Simon Ramo] attended a series of key ballistic missile experiments at Cape Canaveral, Florida, with Air Force Gen. Bernard Schriever. One after another, the test rockets kept exploding on their launch pads. When one missile finally rose six inches before toppling over and bursting into flames, Ramo reportedly beamed and said: “Well, Benny, now that we know the thing can fly, all we have to do is improve its range a bit.”

—Melody Petersen, in the Los Angeles Times