If It Isnt Impossible It Isnt Worth Trying

[Music]

one november day

i found myself in a truly terrible

predicament

i was nasa’s mission director for the

interplanetary probe

deep space one by that day

i had already dedicated well over four

years of my life

and soul to the project the spacecraft

had been in space for a year

and was more than 150 million miles from

earth

almost a million times farther than the

space station

it was in hot pursuit of a comet

but an essential device on board had

just failed permanently

depriving the spacecraft of the

capability to orient itself

in the zero gravity of space deep space

one couldn’t point its main antenna at

distant earth

or do anything else useful with that

disastrous problem

i wound up in charge of a ship ready to

be abandoned

left just as wreckage adrift on the

interplanetary seas

it was so dire everyone recognized that

saving the mission would be

impossible i faced this grim

situation from the jet propulsion

laboratory jpl

nasa’s field center in southern

california that uses robotic spacecraft

to explore the earth

the solar system and beyond

now more than 20 years later i’m jpl’s

chief engineer for mission operations

and science

i’ve learned some awesome things

exploring space

but the most surprising thing i’ve

discovered is if it isn’t impossible

it isn’t worth trying my passion for

space and science was ignited when i was

four

and by the time i was a starry-eyed

nine-year-old i knew i wanted to get a

phd in physics and work at nasa

although it was a few more years before

i did

but my family was worried about me

because they didn’t believe i could make

a living as a rocket scientist

and they couldn’t imagine why i’d ever

need to leave our hometown of toledo

ohio

there was no one in my community who had

a career even

remotely like the kind i aspired to

i might as well have set my sights on

joining a ship in star trek which i

loved

in my uninspiring small town

exploring the vastness of space just

seemed impossible

i didn’t know then that if it isn’t

impossible it isn’t worth trying

but i did know what i wanted and i tried

now before i go on i should say that

passion and dedication are not the whole

story

i recognize how incredibly lucky i’ve

been on my journey

i actually have not had to face

challenges many others have

and i credit my ability to overcome many

of the ones i have faced

more to luck than any other factor but

also

if my goal had been to be a a

world-class sumo wrestler or

an all-star basketball player or both

it really would have been impossible for

me so

you have to pick your impossible goals

wisely

and when i was in junior high school i

decided that not only did i want to be a

nasa scientist

but i wanted to be an astronaut as well

and over the years i did

everything i could in pursuit of that

goal

but while there was one obstacle that no

matter what i did

i could not get past and that was my

vision

but what i ended up doing is in some

ways even

cooler i’ve been in charge of spacecraft

that have traveled

not just hundreds of miles from earth

like astronauts do

but hundreds of millions of miles

explored exotic

alien worlds and uncovered sites never

beheld before

in the process of trying to achieve one

of my goals that proved impossible

i achieved something even more

far-reaching

and at jpl i’ve had spacecraft that have

accomplished what really did seem to be

impossible goals

now in space exploration as in life as

carefully as you plan

sometimes things go wrong you could not

have planned for

fortunately most missions don’t have

such problems

but some do and some fail as a result

two of the missions i’ve been in charge

of have been unlucky enough to suffer

critical failures

one of them was deep space 1 which as i

told you

got into dire straits and actually

it had seemed to be impossible from its

very inception

deep space 1 was to be the first

spacecraft to fly

deep into the solar system with ion

propulsion

which i first heard of in a star trek

episode and later in the star wars thai

fighters thai stands for twin

ion engine and one of the things that’s

so cool about this

is getting to turn that science fiction

into science fact

ion propulsion has ten times the

efficiency of conventional rocket

propulsion

allowing us to conduct much more

ambitious missions

how it works is complicated but what i

want you to remember for now

is that ion propulsion provides a really

gentle thrust

over a really long time

and so instead of firing the engine for

a few minutes or maybe an hour

and coasting for the rest of the mission

as all other spacecraft do

with ion propulsion you fire the engine

most of the time

literally for years and the beauty of it

is

that the spacecraft gradually

accelerates

so you just keep going faster

and eventually you can achieve

fantastically high velocity

ion propulsion delivers acceleration

with patience

and on deep space one we proved we could

make it work

the mission was very successful and in

1999

after it had completed all of its

assignments testing ion propulsion and

11 other advanced technologies

nasa headquarters approved our idea to

try to fly to a

far away comet but along the way

disaster struck

and as i told you the failure of that

vitally important device

left me in an awful predicament imagine

you’re out

hiking in the desert on your own you

have a horrible accident and suffer

life-threatening injuries all you have

is a

bad cell phone connection to a distant

doctor

who might try to figure out some way

for you to save your own life using only

what you happen to have with you

the prognosis was not good

saving a spacecraft with a fatal injury

inconceivably far away would be

impossible

back then as deep space 1 was dying in

the distant deep space desert

i didn’t know that if it isn’t

impossible it isn’t worth trying

but i knew i wanted to explore that

comet

and i tried if we were going to get to

the comet

we had to fire up the ion engine again

within seven months

it took us two months just to point the

main antenna at earth

like improving that lousy cell phone

connection with the doctor

and as deep space one coasted halfway

around the sun

on the wrong course my dedicated team

and i undertook a crash program to

rescue it

it was all new we’d never even thought

about it while the spacecraft was on

earth

and there we were trying to make it work

from millions upon millions of miles

away

it was unbelievably stressful

but against all odds we were ready just

days ahead

of our drop dead deadline we managed to

power on the ion engine again

and set off on a journey of another 15

months

and 750 million miles to try to get to

the

comet we encountered myriad other

obstacles along the way

some so daunting that they too seemed

impossible

but eventually deep space one reached

the comet

and with the spacecraft not built for

exploring comets

aged and wounded practically held

together with

duct tape and good wishes it plunged at

37

000 miles per hour into the comet’s

cloud of gas and dust

the familiar sight you see from earth

and deep inside

on its own racing through this cloud

that’s

thousands of miles across deep space one

had to find the nucleus

that’s just a few miles wide and try to

take pictures of it

and once it escaped from the cloud it

reported back to earth

and after years of piloting this damaged

ship

across the solar system after

incredible struggles and stress

after uncounted frightening risks

my final fear for the mission when the

picture showed up

turned out to be the seismic risk to

southern california

from the cheering that erupted in

mission control

deep space one sent us nasa’s first

close-up pictures of the nucleus of a

comet

the best view humankind ever seen of one

of these strange and mysterious

celestial bodies

that had fascinated and captivated

people throughout history

i like to think i’m reasonably

articulate but for three hours after

that

about all i could manage to say was i

just can’t believe how incredibly cool

this

is later

in the hallway outside mission control

a friend of my team and i cried together

and another friend and i looked at each

other

and at the same time we said all i want

to do is hug you

and we did it was

that day that i came to realize

that if it isn’t impossible it isn’t

worth trying

and despite seeming impossible and yet

being spectacularly successful

most people never even heard about it

because that day

was only 11 days after 9 11

when the world’s news was

focused elsewhere

the other mission is dawn and it built

on deep space one’s success

dawn had three ion engines so it did the

star wars tie fighters one better

dawn used its ion propulsion to explore

two of the last

uncharted worlds in the inner solar

system

dwarf planet series and proto-planet

vesta

the two most massive residents of the

main asteroid belt

between mars and jupiter dawn is the

only spacecraft ever

in more than 60 years of space

exploration

to orbit two separate extraterrestrial

destinations

it was a true interplanetary spaceship

what could be cooler than all that

and after its launch in 2007 dawn

traveled for well over

4 billion miles and more than 11 years

firing its ion engine most of that time

and on its long journey to accomplish

its goals

while in the forbidding depths of space

dawn was unlucky enough to experience

its own equipment failures

different from deep space ones but again

problems that

no one could reasonably have anticipated

and that seemed impossible to solve

not only when they occurred but for long

after as well

but as i learned on deep space one

if it isn’t impossible it isn’t worth

trying

and eventually we did solve them and

dawn went on to exceed its goals

and deep space one and dawn accomplished

their missions

far far from home again they weren’t

just

a couple of hundred miles from earth

like astronauts now on the space station

or even a couple of hundred thousand

miles like astronauts who might visit

the moon again

these spacecraft were a million times

farther than the space station

well over a thousand times farther than

the moon

i’ve been doing this for many years now

but i still think

it’s amazing we can send spacecraft so

unimaginably far away and when i say we

i don’t mean nasa i mean all of us

these are earth’s robotic ambassadors to

the cosmos

and they represent all of us

everyone shares in these kinds of

missions everyone who’s ever

wondered about the cosmos and earth’s

place in it

everyone who’s ever seen the night sky

beckon or

heard the universe’s irresistible

invitation

everyone has ever felt that burning

desire for a bold exciting journey

beyond the horizon after all

deep space one and dawn weren’t really

propelled by ions

but rather by the more pure human thrill

of adventure

that’s what’s allowed us to undertake

multi-year missions

to explore strange new worlds

to seek out new knowledge and to

boldly go where no well

you know and sure i didn’t go

immediately from being that starry-eyed

kid who wanted to be a nasa scientist

and an astronaut to being in charge of

interplanetary spaceships

conducting extraordinary

extraterrestrial expeditions

that astronauts today and even in the

next generation

have no prospect of being able to do

i didn’t know exactly where my passion

would propel me

and in fact it took me to specific

destinations i couldn’t have predicted

but i always kept trying kept pursuing

my goals and kept my journey moving

forward

even when it seemed impossible and no

i didn’t become an astronaut but i did

succeed

because just like deep space one and

dawn on their incredibly long journeys

i confronted my obstacles i did the best

i could

and i kept firing my engine and over

time

my long journey of gradual patient

acceleration

has taken me to profound personal

rewards

more powerful and meaningful to me than

i could

ever have imagined

i’ve learned so much working on these

and other space missions

but i will forever remember the most

surprising thing i discovered

trying to achieve a goal may really be

more important and ultimately more

gratifying

than the specific goal itself

indeed a goal may be almost unimaginably

far away

but you too may discover that even if

it’s impossible

it is worth trying

thank you

you