[FRIAM] Tyrannosaur Canyon and magnificent desolation

[Jochen Fromm]

In the holidays I read (among other things) the following two 
books: "Tyrannosaur Canyon" by Douglas Preston and "First Man: 
The Life of Neil A. Armstrong" by James R. Hansen. Both are 
interesting and impressive. I was surprised that the former novel
takes place near Santa Fe. It is a "techno-thriller" with a lot 
of tension and high scientific accuracy - like a mixture of a 
Michael Crighton and a Dan Brown novel. Is there really a 
tyrannosaur canyon near Santa Fe or somewhere else in New Mexico ? 

The biography of Neil Armstrong was also very interesting. It is 
a bit disillusioning and thought-provoking to see how little a single 
person can do, and how much a whole country can accomplish. There 
were so many people involved in the space program - the American people, 
the congress and the government who financed it, the industry who built 
it, the space agency who controlled it, the astronauts who used it, etc. 

Although astronauts are often seen as real heroes, they can accomplish 
little without their rockets and the large teams of engineers and 
rocket scientists behind them. What is an astronaut without a spaceship ? 
After Apollo 11, Neil Armstrong didn't really know what to do with his 
life, but there were countless disputes about totally meaningless details 
- who has taken pictures of whom on the moon, who has stepped out first, 
was it all a hoax or not... Can we learn something from this for 
(massive) multi-agent systems ?

-J.