It was August 23, 1977; Paul MacCready, Jr.'s pedal-powered Gossamer Condor flew into the record books, claiming the Kremer Prize for human-powered flight. MacCready understood the practical value of failure, and consciously built his success on it. He designed his airplane to crash well- to protect the pilot and be quickly repairable, so the plane could be crashed and learning could continue. MacCready not only expected to fail, he depended on it, to learn, and eventually s