That’s me. Laying in a field. At NASA. I know, it’s a dramatic photo. Well, it was a dramatic moment. I had flown from Missouri to Florida to see the final launch of Space Shuttle Endeavour. But, it was a scrub. That shuttle never lifted off that day. I remember one of the NASA employees said it best, “Space is hard.” It was. It is.
Sometimes things work out. Sometimes they don’t.
It took me 3 tries to get into Google Teacher Academy. It took me two tries to get on the NASA Zero G plane. I applied twice to get into Honeywell’s Advanced Space Academy for Educators. It’s taking me extra time to finish my doctorate because I decided to move to Texas in the middle of writing my dissertation. Watching my dad’s struggle with Multiple Sclerosis, my daughter’s struggle with a variety of acronyms that she continues to overcome, all of it has continued to remind me to keep going. Struggle. When it’s important, you just keep trying. Because it all matters.
Today as I walked into my office, still feeling the joy from Google, I started checking emails and organizing my to-do list, and I opened my NASA-TV link to see that Orion’s launch was on a hold. We had talked about the idea of a Moonshot at Google. 10x thinking. What is your big idea? So watching Orion’s launch made me reflect even more. But then…. Anomalies. A Scrub. Man, I thought, I remember that feeling.
I thought of all the people involved. Working hard to innovate, to create, to design, to collaborate, and to build a spacecraft that will take humans to the red planet. Imagine their disappointment on scrub. I hope they all had teachers who fostered resilience, risk taking, and most of all, the spirit to embrace when things are hard, and keep going when things get tough. They must have, because I’m sure this wasn’t the first design, or the second, or the third that finally made it to the launch pad. Whether it’s the launch of a spacecraft or the launch of an idea, it’s all the same to me. It’s learning. It’s real. It’s challenging. And scrubs? They happen. Because when learning is authentic? Problems aren’t pretend. They are real.
The really hard stuff can either make us wallow or it can strengthen our wings. We can sit and look back, think, rethink, over reflect, and drive ourselves insane. Or, we can pick up, move on, learn something, and fly toward the future. For the record, I didn’t stay laying in that field long. And a few weeks later, I returned to that very spot, once again flying from Missouri to Florida, and was standing, with my camera in hand, and I got to watch and see the shuttle ease of the launch pad in what seemed like slow motion, crackling and lighting up the trail behind it. Then it slipped gracefully into the clouds and humans went to space. I took the photo below. It’s blurry, it’s grainy, and I love it. It’s a moment that proves to me what happens when we push our own limits and keep going.
Just like that. A choice not to wallow, but to move forward and try again. And on the days when I feel like wallowing, I just look at this picture and I remind myself… scrubs happen. But launches? They are worth every bit of the struggle.
And I keep going.
