Coming home to do the hard things.
One of the last projects I worked on in the Navy (2014) was designing, rehearsing, and drafting the first cut of the Navy's and NASA's procedures to recover the Orion MPCV (Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle).
It was an interservice and interagency project that not only inspired me personally as an Orlando boy who grew up watching the shuttle take off, but it also helped me land at the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation (ASF) when I came home after retiring having completed 20 years of Navy service - in a wartime military under four Commanders-in-Chief.
The historical piece of the mission was to educate the crew, their families, their hometowns, and the local San Diego and Navy communities on the work USS SAN DIEGO (LPD 22) was doing with NASA. Our Astronauts will go into deep space, return to earth, and then be safely recovered at sea and brought back to their families and country by the United States Navy and NASA - just as was done in the early days of NASA's human space flight program.
This first step we took on URT-1 (Underway Recovery Test - One) is still evolving, but it helped bring the US Navy and NASA together to do some of our nation's most inspiring and purposeful work.
"We choose, We choose to go to the moon and do these things, and the other hard things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard" (- President John F Kennedy) was a mantra that was echoed on our deckplates because it reminded us of our history, heritage, and future (As Sailors, Americans, and members of "all mankind").
We understood that our Navy mission with URT-1 also "stood on the shoulders of those who did this mission before" and we were humbled as we delved into our studies on the Navy's role in conducting recoveries at sea during the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo missions.
[Sometimes, a reminder of who we are and where we've been can have an effect on us as individuals walking on different paths. These same reminders can also show us who We are, and where We have walked together in the past as a people and community.]
None of the work captured in this video is routine - for the Navy, for NASA, for our nation. But the efforts of everyone, working individually in support of this mission, which started with a vision to go, again, accumulate and build toward a common purpose.
This mission and its ultimate purpose is uniquely American, and traces its roots back to, and stands on the shoulders of, Lewis and Clark and their "Voyage of Discovery."
With risks measured and with meaning and purpose, we look up and lean forward, again.
To be able to tie the work we do at ASF to history and the people who have made it is unique and inspiring.
To be be able to tie the work that we do at ASF to what I personally did before joining the team, is a reminder of why I believe in what we do and the world we shape by selecting and supporting the scholars and leaders who carry forward the torch they received.
Every scholar has a mission, and every scholar is a mission. Our programs, partners, mentors, staff members and goals all drive to this end: Identify the best and brightest STEM talent and research students in the nation and help them keep America at the forefront.
This video is a credit to those who build upon a vision of doing big and complicated things, then have the will to make sure the those big and complicated things are done and finished - with our folks returning Home, safely.