Earth is a small town with many neighborhoods in a very big universe.
You can’t solve problems until you understand the other side.” –Jeffrey Manber.
A partner’s different perspective is valuable, but the very fact that it is different means that it will require work, humility, time, and resources to incorporate that perspective. At times, this will require checking one’s pride at the door.
We are limited only by our imagination and our will to act.
If we adopt the same collaborative mindset and practices that got to the moon and back, and that built the International Space Station, we can alleviate poverty – and do much more.
Ideally, the ISS program will just be one more incremental step on an expanding, incredible journal of exploration and understanding, taking us higher and farther.
And in that moment, I was hit with the realization that this delicate layer of atmosphere is all that protects every living thing on Earth from perishing in the harshness of space.
After mutual respect and understanding are achieved, it is possible to establish real, sincere relationships, which is the foundation of a solid long-term collaboration.
People are more likely to remember the great social interaction they had with a colleague than the great meeting they both attended.
At this point I thought ‘We made it,’ by which I meant ‘We survived.’ I also was acutely aware that my childhood dream of flying into space had just come true.
Everyone I have spoken with about working with the Russians in space exploration believes that the United States has learned a great deal from Russia and that Russia has learned a great deal from the United States – and that the entire international space partnership is much better because of it.
This was exactly what I experienced in space: immense gratitude for the opportunity to see Earth from this vantage, and for the gift of the planet we’ve been given.
Open collaboration encourages greater accountability, which in turn fosters trust.
Weightlessness was wonderful, and I was surprised at how natural it felt.
We essentially had to build a docking mechanism between the two capsules. We didn’t have to share a lot of data, and we did that at the height of the Cold War, which was pretty symbolic.” –Bill Gerstenmaier.
I lay on my back, surprised at how calm and focused I felt, strapped to four and a half million pounds of explosives.
The ISS would not be the incredibly capable orbiting research facility it is today without either Russians or Americans, just as it couldn’t have been built without the Canadian arm used in its construction.
I’m not willing to deceive myself for false comfort, and I’m not willing to don the false mask of external indifference.
As the complexity of the material universe reaches critical mass, a primordial certainty echoes throughout creation in a loud, simultaneous proclamation: We are one!