The last few months have been traumatic for all of us, and the reopening, return to work protocols are turning out to be white-knuckle. The media is only too glad to feed our anxieties. So, I thought I would share 3 inspirational sources I have had which have helped calm my nerves and have fed my optimism in the last couple of weeks.
I share a birthday - August 18 - with Meriwether Lewis of Lewis and Clark explorer fame. So around this time of the year, I usually watch documentaries about their 3 year trek to the Pacific and back. It was soon after we acquired the vast swath of lands from the French as part of the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. Hollywood could not have written a more gripping story of their trek using primitive tools that we routinely do these days by plane or even by car.
Lewis was an assistant to President Jefferson. He had plenty of time to peruse his library which had a wide range of books speculating what the unexplored US West looked like back then. It was rumored to have woolly mammoths, live volcanoes, seven foot beavers and worse. Mere mortals would have refused the assignment. Instead, the Corps of Discovery went ahead and documented 122 previously unknown (to Western man) animal species like the grizzly bear, coyote, prairie dog and bighorn sheep.
With the President's guidance, Lewis prepared extensively for the journey. He learned mineralogy, medicine, astronomy and many other STEM disciplines. The trek itself was full of dangers - it took incredible courage, persistence, luck and diplomacy to survive the journey.
What I especially like about him was the fact that on his 31st birthday, he wrote in his journal how little he had accomplished and resolved ‘to redouble my exertions to live for mankind...as I have heretofore lived for myself’
Unbelievable - he had just become the first American to stand on the Continental Divide in Montana. When they eventually returned home East, their diaries opened up the West to generations that followed. His humility stands out.
Which brings me to my second source of inspiration. Between breaks in Zoom calls, I have been watching replays of the Smithsonian Channel's Aerial America. The 72 episodes show various parts of the US from a gyro-stabilized camera under the nose of a helicopter. While the imagery is stunning, I especially like the fact that they weave in history unique to various parts of the country.
You hear of the many who went West in wagons on the Oregon Trail, Mormons who took a different track to Utah, the 49ers who went to California. You hear of others who helped build the Transcontinental Railroad. You hear of cowboys who took herds of cattle up the Chisholm Trail from Texas to Kansas. You hear of others who paraded and protested for Civil Rights. Each one of them was incredibly brave and faced their own uncertainties. The rumors they encountered were likely even worse than what we keep hearing about COVID. Yet, they persisted.
For my birthday, my family gifted me a visit to Kennedy Space Center this weekend. That turned into my third source of inspiration. We saw man and machine which were part of the Gemini, Apollo, Space Shuttle, today's Dragon, and upcoming Orion missions. But I was particularly struck by the bravery of the early astronauts. Like Lewis and Clark, they had heard every possible rumor about aliens and UFOs and being stranded in space.
In all the other things we saw during the visit, I happened to catch a short video showing the crew boarding Shuttle flight STS-114 on July 26, 2005. This was the first "Return to Flight" Space Shuttle mission following the Columbia disaster. I came home and Googled to see if I could find a longer video. It's below. Starting around 8.25 you see the crew in Hawaiian shirts at a press conference, then confidently boarding the Astrovan to get to the Space shuttle. Later in the video you see many of the changes NASA made as a result of the Columbia investigation.
As we navigate uncharted waters post-COVID we are hearing plenty of rumors and we have plenty of fears. We may not have the backing of a President or the resources of a NASA behind us. In some ways, however, we have much better. As I wrote here, Moore's Law is being applied to human beings with stunning results "In all the doom and gloom around the virus, it is easy to miss the amazing acrobatics we have witnessed both in healthcare and life sciences. Telemedicine, pop up hospitals, medical professionals parachuting in wherever needed. Healthcare professionals have learned so much from the Italy and NY experience - how not to overuse ventilators, how to flex ICU capacity. Therapies like Remsdesivir, Dexamethasone and Convalescent Plasma have kicked in. All kinds of vaccines are being developed, clinical trials being accelerated like never before." Our HCM and Facilities Managers have been exploring all kinds of physical site re-opening protocols.
Let me close with something else I saw at Kennedy Space Center. This was a quote from a speech by President Reagan consoling the nation after the Challenger shuttle exploded upon takeoff in 1986.
We have repeatedly bounced back from adversities. A tiny little virus is not going to hold us back.
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