If you subscribe to the cock-up theory of history, this interesting and often humorous book will have more than a passing interest for you, but there's also something in it if you're a conspiracy theorist, since the original cock-ups that inspired it were deliberately covered up - it will only serve to confirm what you always thought of the systems we are governed by.
Part of the title was chosen because of a US airman working on a major USAF Missile program, who was directly responsible for the permanent injury of a fellow airman and the destructive loss of an Atlas missile. He was typical of several individuals on that program (and others) who acted without thinking about the results of their actions (the remainder of the title's origins is covered towards the end of the book). There was also incomplete design analysis that resulted in the total loss of two Atlas missiles, an Agena spacecraft with a very costly, highly secret payload, as well as the total loss of three launch pads, along with their support facilities.
The book itself is broken into four sections. The first describes the Vandenberg years, which deal with man-caused explosions or loss of ballistic missiles, and their aftermath, along with other missile-related oddities. Section two deals with deceit, lies and cover-ups in the defense industry, while section three describes the intentional cover-up of defects in a major commercial aircraft program. Section four contains Lu's personal opinions on how some major air disasters could have been avoided, as well as his observations relative to the reliability and safety of commercial aircraft, or the lack thereof.
Lu Zuckerman was involved in the Defense and Aerospace industries for over forty-two years, working in various engineering capacities on helicopters, missiles, ships, manned spacecraft, satellites and aircraft. He was a Reliability Maintainability and Systems Safety Engineer since 1968, and in 1978 became a technical consultant in those areas, on assignments in the United States, Canada and Europe, working on military and commercial aircraft, helicopters and an orbital space station.
Soft Cover