One of the remarkable features of the Human Genome Project (HGP) was that much of the technology needed to complete the project not only did not exist (e.g. hig

One of the remarkable features of the Human Genome Project (HGP) was that much of the technology needed to complete the project not only did not exist (e.g. highly parallel sequencers), but was not even imagined (e.g. PCR - the polymerase chain reaction). Unlike landing on the moon, where much of the science was well understood, the technical solutions to the human genome were not known when it was envisioned. Science is not engineering; the HGP succeeded because science came up with technical solutions that could then be engineered. But both were required. It is unclear that there are effective ways to accelerate unimagined scientific discoveries.