Five lessons for humanity from the successful landing of rover on Mars

Animated cheering. The team members stood up, arms raised, some hit the air with their fists, and all clapped. The excitement was palpable. The achievement was incredible. There was highly-anticipated landing-touchdown; then minutes later images of the surface from Mars-the Red Planet. Clad in T-Shirts emblazoned with the logo of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa), the personnel at mission control centre in Pasadena, California, US, stared into a historic feat; which left some of them momentarily staring into open space. It was unbelievable.

On Thursday (3:55pm US Eastern Time), Nasa made a successful landing of a spacecraft- a new robotic rover on the surface of Mars - after travelling around 293 million miles (471 million kilometres) from Earth (watch an amazing video above of the rover's landing). The car-sized Perseverance Rover, is the most advanced robot ever sent to Mars.

Millions of people across different parts of the world, including heads of state, watched live streaming of the landing of the rover on the surface of Mars - the fourth planet from the Sun and the second-smallest planet in the Solar System. Branham, a friend, watching the event from Melbourne, Australia remarked: “It was really something from another world.” At a post-landing briefing, Nasa’s acting chief, Steve Jurczyk, called it an “amazing accomplishment,” adding, “I cannot tell you how overcome with emotion I was”. 

The entire process - the launch from Earth, entry to Mars, and descent worked to superb precision. There are many lessons for humankind on the outstanding achievement by the Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover Team. Some of them include:

1. Practical (Impractical is possible): Scientists made an implausible accomplishment with the landing of the rover; almost an alien, outlandish feat. The team at mission control centre was visibly tense in the minutes before touchdown. Some of the members freely expressed their emotions after the successful landing of Perseverance Rover. Soon after the landing of the rover, US President Joe Biden tweeted that the feat was historic, and it has proved that with the power of science and American ingenuity, nothing is beyond the realm of possibility. While another successful spacecraft, Curiosity landed on a flat terrain on the Red Planet in 2012, Perseverance did so inside a basin that has among others; boulders and gullies, in Jezero Crater - believed to have had a lake and rivers, three billion years ago. Significantly, it takes 11 minutes for a signal from the robot to reach Earth at the speed of light! At the rover’s descent, it sliced through the thin Martian air, with the aid of a huge parachute, went down at supersonic speed, a phenomenal achievement in the field of aerospace. With the landing of Perseverance Rover at the Red Planet, major strides in Astrobiology (an interdisciplinary scientific field concerned with the origins, early evolution, distribution, and future of life in the universe), are now plausible. However, scientists are yet to develop a rover that can make a return trip to Mars. They foresee and plan for this 'impossibility', and even manned rovers to Mars. Apparently, human capability in science and technology is boundless - and the same applies in other spheres of life. At an individual level; one can achieve what he/she deems as impossible. Recall of individuals who started work as janitors, gardeners, security guards or foremen at their workplace, and rose in the career ladder, reaching the pinnacle in the firms; through sheer hard work and enrolling in colleges to further their modest education levels. One must have a strong and positive resolve to succeed; to achieve an 'impossible' goal.

2. Planning, Patience and Pain! The six-wheeled robot took seven months journey from earth into the atmosphere of Mars. Can you imagine how the Mars 2020 Perseverance Team had to wait and work for more than 200 days before the landing; from the moment of launching on 30th July, last year? It took seven months, travelling million of kilometres, for the rover to reach the Red Planet. If one travelled from earth to Mars using a car, at a speed of 80kph, it could take over 100 years, none-stop to reach there! There was US Elections, Christmas, New Year and many other festivities and events that occurred during the seven months. Even as the team marked these days individually and with their families, there was anxiety, sleepless nights for them and many lingering question, such as: What could go wrong? The Washington Post states about the landing: “This is one of the hardest technological feats human beings have ever attempted.” The mission faced challenges such as the Covid-19 pandemic, which resulted in a rethink of assembly and testing protocols. In their mind, the mission personnel knew that something could go wrong and the whole exercise come to a painful crash, hence an unsuccessful mission. From the end of July last year, when the rover was launched, they patiently worked; as they had for several years to plan, build and assemble the rover. And even with the impeccable landing of the rover, the mission is not complete; there is still a lot of work ahead, as the research part commences. Perseverance is designed to extract biosignatures (any substance – such as an element, isotope, or molecule – or phenomenon that provides scientific evidence of past or present life) embedded in samples of ancient sediments from Martian rock for future analysis back on Earth. Furthermore, two subsequent Mars missions are planned to retrieve the samples and return them to Nasa after more than ten years! Figure out the waiting and avid work of more than a decade by scientists, before the study of the samples that Perseverance will collect commences! All great achievements in life require a lot of toiling and patience; there is no in-between. FUBU - an American hip hop apparel company- founder, Daymond John, in his instant New York Times bestseller, The Power of Broke, gives numerous examples of individuals who started businesses with limited resources, but with the desire and hunger to achieve set goals, eventually excelled. Form the onset, these budding businesspeople underwent pain, as they struggled, but ultimately succeeded. Individuals and teams have to put long hours in an endeavour, as the Mars 2020 Perseverance Team has vividly illustrated.

3. Persistence and Perseverance: The Mars 2020 Perseverance Team has worked for many, many days and nights; culminating to the successful landing of the robotic rover. Notably, almost 50 per cent of the spacecrafts sent to the surface of Mars in the past have failed. Perseverance is Nasa’s ninth landing on Mars and the agency’s fifth rover. There has been tenacity among the team members. Past failures have not deterred or dithered the team. Even the name of the rover, attests to the indomitable spirit of the mission. The name Perseverance was picked by Nasa after a nationwide student ‘name the rover’ contest in the US, which attracted more than 28,000 proposals! The winning entry was selected from a seventh-grade student. One needs to persist and persevere on a given pursuit. Ethiopian Abebe Bikila won gold in the Marathon race at the 1960 Olympics in Rome, Italy, despite running bare-feet. Bikila ran barefoot because his team-issued shoes hurt his feet. Marathoners are not only supposed to be well-trained, but have the best running shoes! Astoundingly, Bikila become the first African to win Olympic gold medal, and in the process set a new world record. So often, we give up on something we have set to accomplish, after a few attempts. We let despondency cloud us. Obstinately, continue to work on a personal, or career goal, in spite of difficulties - a key ingredient of success. Be steadfast.

4. Precision: Nasa described the descent and landing systems as having “performed flawlessly”. Undoubtedly, there was a huge, huge sigh of relief, mixed with an avalanche of exhilaration, as the success of landing was not certain. The landing of Perseverance rover on Jezero's floor, which has hazardous features such as boulder fields, cliffs, and sand dunes, made it the toughest ever targeted by a Mars mission. Thus, this dangerous terrain made it mandatory for Perseverance to make the most precise Red Planet touchdown ever. The technology that made this landing impeccable is enormously advanced. Among this technology is the deployment of a supersonic parachute at just the right moment. One has to make attempts to excel. Author John Mason, in his book, An Enemy Called Average, argues that ordinariness in whatever one does will not achieve much. Mason says: “Mediocrity is a region bound on the north by compromise, on the south by indecision, on the east by past thinking, and on the west by a lack of vision.” Personal development requires vigour and quest for eminence and grandeur. In the present-day technological advancement era, those who have shown precision in solving problems have carried the day. Amazon’s founder Jeff Bezos exemplifies this phenomenon.

5. Partnership and Teamwork: According to Nasa, the Mars 2020 Perseverance Team (hundreds of staff: see the image above) is made up of scientists and engineers from multiple disciplines, with international participation from countries and organisations; drawn from around the world. The science team includes principal investigators from the US, Spain, and Norway. Hundreds of many individuals made important contributions for the mission to be executed successfully. No particular individual (s) seems to take credit for the accomplishment. There are team leaders for the mission, but there are no individuals standing out as the key cog of the mission. A janitor working at Nasa Space Centre demonstrated the essence of teamwork, when he told the then US President about his work. During a visit to centre in 1962, President John F. Kennedy came across a janitor carrying a broom. Kennedy walked over to the man and said, "Hi, I'm Jack Kennedy. What are you doing?" “Well, Mr. President,” the janitor replied, “I'm helping put a man on the moon.” How often do organisations pick out individuals as their star performers and parade them, often assuming that they worked in a vacuum? How often do management fail to realise that teamwork is a cog in action and not mere words?

Perhaps the biggest lesson from the Mars 2020 Perseverance Team is from Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg's sentiments on purpose and vision. He says: “Purpose is that sense that we are part of something bigger than ourselves, that we are needed, that we have something better ahead to work for.”