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