By Teresa A. Martin
NASA was on my radar screen this week, in part from reading CNET's coverage of 50 years in space. I linked to those articles and photo-stories in Of Additional Interest at the end of this newsletter, if you'd like to explore them too.
My reaction to this coverage was this: FIFTY YEARS?!?!?! FIFTY?!?!?!
And my second reaction, perhaps from thinking about this week's first JrTech workshops which were two workshops in the Space Series, was sheer wonder how much NASA changed so many lives, including those of us who grew up seeing the impossible become real.
Sometimes it is hard to the see the direct link between investment and return. In general, we humans like our cause and effect to be pretty simple. Put a quarter in the machine, get a gumball. Put $1,000 in the bank, get $500 in interest. Buy a new scheduling software package, save 23% in labor costs due to more effective use of people's time. Cause. Effect. Linear.
But some of the most powerful returns aren't measured in such a concrete manner. Science is one of those.
What is the return on understanding why water is salty? What do we get out of finding out how high is high or how deep is deep?
Those questions are looking at cause and effect in far too narrow a way because neither the questions nor the answers are granular in nature and the return comes at a much higher, more abstract, and more profound level. What is the return on curiosity? What is the return on inspiration? On a discovered love of the natural world? Or on self-belief? What is the return on a fascination with how things work?
When we see and celebrate the adventures of science through highly public programs like NASA, it takes front and center stage and it creates ripple effects that we may not recognize for decades or more.
What about the child who looked in the sky for Sputnik and perhaps saw the world as one big globe for the first time ... and went on to create a business that sells products and has employees in 3 continents?
Or the one who watched with fascination as ground command tracked an Apollo mission and subsequently studied computer science and wrote that schedule software code that gave you your 23% labor return?
Wonder and curiosity, when combined with a belief that anything is possible and that it is ok to try and fail and try again, is a potent combination that leads to learning and discovery and innovation and creation of amazing and unpredictable returns.
The greatest legacy of the space program isn't the commercial spin-offs - although they reach wide and far on every aspect of our lives. It isn't the impact on our technology world. And it isn't even the new horizons it has opened up, or the wealth of knowledge and understanding of our world it has brought us.
No, the greatest and still growing legacy is the inspiration it created in the hearts of children - and adults - who went on to ask lots of questions, believe in the impossible and create, innovate, discover, and make the world we are still making today. And maybe to teach a workshop called Spaceworks, passing along that legacy to yet another generation and beyond.
Become a Member
