When the solarians, who have a totalitarian society of necessity, devote 100% of several decades their planet's energy and creativity to creating a subatomic weapon, and in the first demonstration it doesn't work and the president turns to to glare at the lead scientist, who says something like "oops", I thought that was written to be funny. To me the book is basically about the folly of human affairs, especially placing too much trust in science and scientists.