Science Quote by Wernher von Braun

There is a sly candor in von Braun admitting that research begins in the fog. The line punctures the fantasy of the scientist as a human slide rule, calmly executing a prewritten plan. Instead, it frames research as disciplined stumbling: a sanctioned state of not-knowing that you enter on purpose, then methodically map your way out of. The joke lands because it flips the expected hierarchy. We assume research produces certainty; von Braun suggests uncertainty is the raw material and the job description.

The intent is also defensive, in the best way. For a scientist whose public image was bound up with rockets that either worked spectacularly or failed on the launchpad, the quote normalizes trial, error, and embarrassing dead ends. It gives permission to be lost without being unserious. That’s not self-deprecation so much as process realism: when you’re pushing into the new, you can’t rely on instructions, because instructions don’t exist yet.

The subtext carries a postwar, big-technology edge. Von Braun helped engineer machines that made “not knowing” extremely consequential, politically and morally. In that context, the line reads like a capsule definition of high-stakes innovation: progress requires venturing beyond competence, but you must do it with protocols, peers, and evidence. It’s funny because it’s true; it’s unsettling because it’s also how power learns.