What NASA’s Perseverance can teach us ?
The name says it all, plus two more lessons.
July 30th 2020, Perseverance Rover successfully headed for a 7-month journey to join lone Curiosity on the Red Planet, wandering out there for 8 years and more. Meanwhile, Earthlings have been struggling to address a planetary health crisis amid a non-stop social, economic and (geo)political turmoil here and there. How can such a news be relevant in our hectic everyday life?
Perseverance, they said
Once every 26 months, Earth and Mars line up to enable an optimal travel in terms of time and.. energy needed. Back in December 2012, a few months after the landing of Curiosity, the mission Mars 2020 was already planned to launch on July, taking into account the everlasting dance of sister planets. In the meantime, a pandemic has gone wild resulting in unprecedented restrictions hitting most of activities, namely Perseverance team forced to work remotely for weeks, like it never did before. Neither lockdown nor pressures of all kinds dissuaded the space knights from achieving their goal in time.
Take-away : Whatever happens, how resilient and flexible can you be, in the pursuit of the goals which mean that much to you ?
Curiosity can’t be left alone!
At first, Sojourner knocked for a first glimpse into our intriguing neighbor, and yet, it honored its name, making the most of its short stay during 3 months of deployment in summer 1997. Years later, Opportunity popped up, alongside its twin rover Spirit for a much longer Mission started on 2004, which in return triggered Curiosity to hit by 2012, taking Martian photography to another level and uplifting our own admiration and curiosity..
However, less than 15 miles have been covered in 8 years by that latter due to the harsh terrain, and more.. While the information collected so far is priceless, there is so much left to discover elsewhere. On the other hand, technological means and dreams have tremendously grown alike. Perseverance is expected to answer questions aging Curiosity could not handle alone.
Take-away : The joys of your own curiosity should open the doors to a non-stop learning journey. At times, Curiosity may fade, your Perseverance won’t.
Learning is incremental
Although Curiosity mission has proved to be resilient and hard working, not to mention the countless high-resolution imagery yielded by orbiters watching the Red Planet, scientists were decided to dive deeper, exploring different areas and.. ages of another world, a once ocean world. In fact, Perseverance should investigate Jezero Crater which is suspected to host a deep lake in the deep past.
Clearly, this breakthrough could not happen if we have not gained precious insights about the geography of the planet. Furthermore, next missions will help us to assess our chances to terraform Mars in the decades and centuries to come. It’s not about “curiosity” anymore : We are building bit by bit a better understanding of our far neighbor.
Take-away : What about your farthest dream ? How can you bite size your learning path towards it ? Which single skill can you start working to propel yourself to a limitless transformational trip ?
