PERSEVERANCE . . . ON EARTH

FEBRUARY 19, 2021 – Every day of the ski season, I observe the same routine before heading out the door, especially when it’s radically cold. It goes like this:

1. Turn on living room TV.
2. Run upstairs to bedroom, remove “street clothes” and put on windblock tights, grab four layers for upper body, and photo I.D. from wallet;
3. Run to basement (two trips), grab skis, poles, backpack with ski boots, vest, nylon shell, plus gloves, buff, cap, bandana, and running shoes;
4. Return to living room and assemble self/clothing while watching cable news;
5. Run through checklist:
   1. House key in shell pocket – check;
   2. Photo I.D. in shell pocket– check;
   3. Check battery charge on phone – check;
   4. Phone in vest pocket – check;
   5. Avalanche transponder – check (just kidding).
6. Turn off TV and . . . Leave.

Yesterday, just as I was pushing my arms through the sleeves of one of the shirts (step 4 above), cable news cut from Ted Cruz at the airport to Perseverance less than 10 kilometers above Mars. With hands not yet all the way through the sleeves, I froze (despite a fully functioning furnace)—transfixed by what was happening 127.85 million miles away, as depicted on the flatscreen six feet away. While the spacecraft hurtled with breakneck velocity toward its Martial target, I remained motionless rand held my breath.

When the successful landing was confirmed (after an 11-minute delay), the Jet Propulsion Lab control room crew unleashed their joy. I pulled my shirt on all the way, let out a cheer and joined the applause.

After a continuous run of extreme failure in this country, including a long stretch of criminal denial of science, we scored a wondrous achievement using the tools of science in the advancement of science. I’m betting there weren’t many anti-vaxxers, anti-maskers, climate-change-deniers in that JPL control room or among all the scientists and engineers behind yesterday’s achievement.

As I listened to interviews with elated people involved with the project, I couldn’t help but recall America’s humiliation after the Soviet Union’s success with Sputnik. Our rival’s achievement in October 1957 caught us flatfooted and triggered a crisis of confidence. Military infighting (Army vs. Navy in a game of “our rockets are better than yours”), political wrangling, and media madness made matters worse. In the end, however, we pulled our act together, created NASA, and gave it carte blanche. In our back pocket was an ace in the hole: our former Nazi rocket man, Wernher von Braun was better than the Soviets’ former Nazi rocketeers—whose identities were hidden by Russian chauvinism. (See “Operation Paperclip”–our clandestine effort to spirit former “bad guy” engineers out of Germany after WW II).

As I skied hard over earth’s winter mantel, I thought about Perseverance resting on Mars, catching its breath after a six-and-a-half-month journey through 294 million miles of space. With unrelenting perseverance, we need to cheer the rover’s mission and all the work to follow. We need to rise above our failures and strive for a better world here on earth by reaching out far beyond it.

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© 2021 by Eric Nilsson