A team for the moon

Last night after Richard and I got back from our excursions*, I caught the last half-hour of October Sky on network TV, one of my most beloved space movies, although no one in it makes it to space. It’s the movie based on Homer Hickam’s book, Rocket Boys, which tells the story of his first baby steps into aerospace engineering (rocket science, to me) with his three high school friends, none of whom followed him into NASA nor became rocket scientists. Even so, their collaboration enabled them to figure out how to build a flying rocket, and got them all into college.

When I watched it, I was reminded of the amazing things that individuals can accomplish when they join together—so much greater than they can alone. Bridges that span continents. Skyscrapers that house thousands of people. Information systems that enable communications between speakers of hundreds of languages. It fills me with the same kind of awe I feel when I think of a man walking on the moon—the fact that human hard work can make such a thing happen. Not miracles or supernatural powers—just plain old “want to.” Sometimes being part of a team can drive you bats. It can feel like you’re all teetering on a house of cards, and if you just had to rely on yourself, you’d at least be sure of the legs beneath you. But the fact is, the more hands you have in the work, the larger the net you have to catch you if you fall.

I’ve been thinking a lot about collaboration and space efforts lately because of my involvement with Team STELLAR. I am helping administrate our team wiki, and as more and more engineers create their team pages, pick up assignments and tell us about themselves, I feel the same stirrings of awe. What we are trying to do, on the face, might not seem particularly noteworthy. After all, we’ve been to the moon. What else is there to do? The fact is, there are so many answers to that simple question that I can’t even begin to list them in a single blog post, although I hope to be talking a lot about them in the coming months. But I’m pretty confident that our answers will be as awesome as those skyscrapers and bridges, because of the collaboration of our incredible network of volunteers.

Life a life of optimism and adventure. Or else, what’s a life for?—Homer Hickam.

*11:00-4:30: Carter-Finley Stadium (we lost, 31-38)
*4:30-6:00: shopping for new sun lenses for me & dinner at the mall. What a fab life we lead.
*6:00-7:30: shopping for Richard’s laptop at Best Buy.