The Mars Curiosity Lander hit the surface of the red planet on August 6th. 

While this may not have had the impact the first man on the moon landing had (RIP Neil Armstrong) it is nonetheless, a pretty spectacular piece of work.  All the things that went right out of all the things that could have gone wrong and viola – we’re on the surface. 

I saw the video below the other day and thought to myself, “how often do I – or others for that matter – have this kind of day?”

Below is a video that shows the team at Mission Control during the landing overlaid with an animation of the landing.)

 

 

Did you see it?  The crying, the hugging, the high-fives, the sighs of relief?  The catharsis of seeing a grand mission come to fruition in front of your eyes?

Here’s a video with the real images from Mars (and subscribers may need to click link to see video) with the voiceover of the landing process from Earth.  Pretty spectacular stuff.

 

 

Granted, this kind of day doesn’t happen all the time.  Nor should it.  We’d all be basket cases if every day we had this kind of stress associated with our work.  But, on the whole, it is really nice to be able to have a few of these kinds of days every year – or – in the case of the Curiosity Lander… one in about 8 years.

Some Facts About Curiosity

  • Started work as an unnamed Mars rover in December of 2004
  • The public voted on the rover’s name via a public poll on the NASA website from March 23-29, 2009 (love me some crowdsourcing)
  • Curiosity launched November 26, 2011 (yea, that’s 22 months ago)
  • Curiosity landed on Mars at 05:17:57 on August 6, 2012
  • Due to the distance the signal that Curiosity landed took 14 minutes to reach Earth (note: the signal travels at the speed of light and it STILL took 14 minutes – that’s a bit of distance)

But the lesson here is in employee engagement.

Over the course of 8 years the team that built Curiosity was engaged.  Had to be.  NASA only needed one piece of electronics to be a hair out of alignment, or one line of computer code to have an extra & or > to make it all go kablooie.

Can’t engage your team this week?  This quarter?  This YEAR?

Go back to school.  It can be done.  It can be done in a big ways and in a little ways.

Give people a mission.

Give people a reason.

Give people space (pun intended) to work on their own and in their own way.

Think Inclusion

Think I’m fooling?  Take a look at the team that made Curiosity happen below.

See anything interesting here?  Not your normal old, white guy group is it?

Kids?  Narwhals – really?  Mohawks?  Yep.  These aren’t your traditional “scientists” (or maybe they are.)

Check out this interview with the Mohawk Guy and the Elvis Guy  (real name Bobak Ferdowsi and Adam Stelzner repsectively.)

These are the people that worked for about 8 years to get something on MARS!

I’m pretty sure you could get your little team to get that next app done, or that next sales pitch done in a week.

This is engagement.  This is what we need to do.

 

And because none of this would have happened without true Pioneers…

This past weekend brought with it some sad news. 

Neil Armstrong passed away. 

And I’m sure, thanks to our continuing investment in public school education, there are a few of you reading who don’t know who Neil Armstrong was.

Let me put it kindly…

HE WAS THE FREAKING FIRST MAN ON THE FREAKIN MOON!

Good, now that I have that out of my system.