Test as You Fly, Fly as You Test

NASA applied the principle of 'Test as You Fly, Fly as You Test ' on during their Mars Polar lander project. The principle of "test-as-you-fly" means that ground tests and simulations should accurately reflect the planned mission profile, plus margin and the appropriate off-design parameters.  Test as You Fly emphasizes testing to find fundamental flaws in a system that will prevent it from performing the mission. It is all about confirming that the system - as a whole - will operate in the environment it is designed to operate, the environment we typically refer to as "live"  

This concept of Test as You Fly reminds me of the concept of training for emergencies. Such trainings are common in the world of industry or in case of Test as You Fly for special multi-billion dollar project  of NASA. I wonder what about in our own personal life. Why don't we develop similar traditions of preparing us for events in our life? 

I do not think we could rely on formal education in our schooling system. They have their own agendas and we all have stories about people with academic degrees that behave badly. Getting the academic degree seems has no strong correlation with the quality of the person. 

I guess the next source of guidance -if you may - would be religion. How do our religions prepare us to face our life crisis? I could not say about other religion but I could see that Catholic church does give opportunity for the faithfuls to meditate, to repent, to become a new person for example during Lent Period. Of course it is up to each individual if they would use the opportunity or not.

I guess we could conclude that it is up each of us in matters of training ourselves so we are better prepared to face any kind of crisis in our life. But one thing is sure that industry and NASA had reminded us the importance of such training.  Obviously. it would be too late to learn swimming when the boat we are in is sinking.