universal human rights

Watching the Mars landing was a family affair, though virtual. I wore my NASA hoodie (a gift from my NASA-engineer son-in-law), poured a glass of wine to toast the landing (and a bowl of peanuts, a NASA tradition ¹), and texted with my daughters and their partners for over an hour. The amount of knowledge, work, precision, imagination, and commitment that makes a mission like the Perseverance landing a reality is overwhelming.

Consider just a few details:

Over the eight years, NASA teams around the world designed, built, and tested a rover that would travel 292.5 million miles before reaching its destination on a moving target – a small area in a lakebed on Mars.

Perseverance and the small drone helicopter (Ingenuity) launched atop an Atlas V-541 rocket from Cape Canaveral on July 30,2020.

Because of the time lag between the transmission of signals from the space craft and their reception back on earth, Perseverance landed herself. Perseverance executed the entry, descent, and landing sequence—over 500,000 lines of code—without human assistance.

Perseverance is looking for evidence of past life and is equipped with, intelligent cameras, a weather station, a robotic arm, a drill to collect and then store rock core samples (amazingly, to be picked up later and returned to earth during future missions), and a radar imager that can look beneath the surface for geologic features².

The science and engineering involved in this mission are staggering³. But for NASA folks, I suppose, they are a given, simply a part of the quotidian routine.

Watching events unfold in Mission Control at the Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL) and listening to commentary provided by several of those involved in the mission, particularly Dr. Swati Mohan, the guidance, navigation, and control operations lead, and Rob Manning, JPL Chief Engineer, my family and I were filled with the excitement, hope, and nervousness evident in the scientists at Mission Control. We had a personal resource in my son-in-law, who provided insight into procedures and answered questions peppered throughout our texted conversations. I love these hangouts with my crew!

Wisdom from the Mars 2020 mission

Humility

A couple of thoughts shared by Manning, resonated deeply with me. First, as he described preparing for the mission and then watching it live, he talked about the possibly of failure:

“We’re human beings. We’re not perfect. Mistakes can be made. We each count on each other to find our own mistakes, and we work very hard to learn from mistakes from the pat. We’ve had many failures…We remind people that roughly over half the missions to Mars over history have failed. And that could happen today, too. Even though we’ve had a wonderful stream of successes in the United States, it’s still a bit of a gamble…But if we do fail, and something bad happens today, I can tell you, we are going to learn. We’ll have the data to tell us what happened. We’ll know why. We’ll figure it out. And if we are allowed, we will pick ourselves up and get us back on the horse. And if Congress and NASA allow, we we’ll try again. As we always do. We will learn from our mistakes…”^⁴

It takes humility to acknowledge past mistakes and the possibility of failure in the present endeavor. And, by live streaming the event with the whole world watching as it unfolds, NASA bravely embraced that vulnerability.

Certainly, there are things that best remain private. But not all. As tempting as it might be to exclude others from a journey as it unfolds and instead, wait until the outcome is known – sharing successes, hiding failures – sometimes inviting others as companions on the way provides opportunities for support and growth for everyone, no matter what happens.

Members of NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover team study data on monitors in mission control, Thursday, Feb. 18, 2021, at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. Photo Credit:NASA/Bill Ingalls — Photo Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls

When people work together

NASA photo of Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover team in Mission Control, cheering when they heard the news that Perseverance had landed safely on Mars. — Photo Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls

Cheers and applause greeted Perseverance’s safe landing on Mars. Not only had it found a good place to land in a terrain full of hazards the rover had to avoid, but it also landed in the area NASA scientists believe is likely to hold evidence of ancient life: a lakebed near a river delta. It was a triumph for the team.

Images streaming from Mission Control showed the team’s jubilation. The pandemic ruled out handshakes, but there were plenty of fist and elbow bumps and eyes shining with smiles above the double masks. I teared up, as usual when witnessing such events.

My family and I raised our glasses.

Manning was exuberant.

“NASA works,” he said. “When we put our arms together and our hands together and our brains together we can succeed. This is what NASA does. This is what we can do as a country on all other problems we have. We need to work together to do these kinds of things and make success happen.”

Yes. Work together to meet the problems we have. And we have plenty, including and going beyond the pandemic and vaccination rollout: climate change, systemic racism, White supremacy, division, and hatred of “the other.” There are organized attacks on voting rights that are threatening our democracy and targeting the poor and people of color. Some people have no problem denying basic human rights to many, including women and LGBT people. For many American citizens, access to healthcare and housing is unavailable. The list is long.

Not a technical problem

If we can successfully land a rover on Mars, we certainly have the knowledge and technology to develop alternative energies and address climate change, an imminent danger to this country and to the world. As one of my daughters observed soon after watching the Mars landing, it’s not a technical problem we face. It’s a social problem. The country must have the collective will to do it, and that can emerge only when honest reporting and facts are presented to the population.

Photo of members of NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover team, a young white woman and a young Black man, study data on monitors in mission control, Thursday, Feb. 18, 2021, at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. — Photo Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls

In addition to stalling massive action on climate change, misinformation also feeds fear, hatred, and violence against minorities and people deemed “other.” America has enough wealth and resources to feed its people. It has the means to provide healthcare to all. Again, what is missing is the collective will to do so. Raising up those in need does not mean tearing others down. But is does require a mindset that values the common good.

Diversity is a strength. It is critical to understand that the talents contributed by all people are necessary for a healthy, thriving society. Everyone’s gifts are needed. As Manning pointed out, the team that put Perseverance on Mars was a diverse one. That was obvious in the images from Mission control: women and men, a variety of races and ethnicities, of ages, of backgrounds. And the group at the JPL were just part of the thousands involved in the mission:

Manning said, “We haven’t done this before with this vehicle, ever. This is its first attempt to actually land. We can’t try this on earth… We don’t have test pilots to try this out on this planet before the big show… We’ve done our best testing we can do in bits and pieces. But, you know, it’s the best we can do but I think our team is up to it. This team is the best. It’s diverse. Intelligent. Amazing group of people. These are people from all over the world who have worked on this…”

Thousands of people put their arms, hands, and brains together to make Mars 2020 a success. Thousands and even millions of people across this country and around the world can transcend self-interest, fear, and hatred to put their hands and brains and hearts together. If greed and power are no longer prime motivators of policy and those who make it, but instead Common Good and universal human rights⁵ become the guiding principles, success can be achieved.

Thank you NASA, for the stunning reminder of what is possible when people work together. Congratulations to you all!

It’s up to the rest of the country to come together, to join hands, brains, hearts, and efforts, to focus on the common good and work to address the challenges that face the United States and the world.

A team of engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, install the legs and wheels — otherwise known as the mobility suspension — on the Mars 2020 rover. — Photo Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Feature Image Credit

Photo Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls

First post image of the Mars 2020 logo being installed on the United Launch Alliance Atlas V payload fairing

Photo Credit: NASA/Christian Mangano

Sources

NASA’s lucky charm for a success mission? Peanuts
Learn more about instruments on board
Learn more about the Mars 2020 Mission on NASA Mars 2020 Mission Perseverance Rover website
Manning’s quotes were transcribed from the over two hours recorded NASA’s live stream of the event found on NASA’s YouTube Channel
Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Painting by Laurie VanBalen, Project Director and Producer of Columbus Crossing Borders Project

The Scripture readings for Sunday, November 25, and Pope Francis’s new encyclical, Fratelli Tutti, share major themes that speak to current global and national issues. The texts clearly place this call front and center: Love and care for our neighbors (that’s everyone) and the common good, and turn from “idols” that hinder us from doing so.

Exodus reminds us that the poor, marginalized, and vulnerable among us deserve special respect and care. This is not an option. This is not charity. It is justice required by a compassionate God. When they are mistreated, God hears their cries.

The pandemic has highlighted the inability of the global community to work together to address the crisis. It has revealed failures and fissures in this country’s polices, institutions, and lack of will when it comes to justice and providing for those living on the edges.

Pope Francis introduces the social encyclical’s first chapter, “Dark Clouds Over a Closed World,” saying he intends “…simply to consider certain trends in our world that hinder the development of universal fraternity” (9). [Numbers after Fratelli Tutti quotes indicate the paragraph in the document where they are found.]

His list of concerns includes a throwaway world where “Some parts of our human family, it appears, can be readily sacrificed for the sake of others considered worthy of a carefree existence. Ultimately, persons are no longer seen as a paramount value to be cared for and respected, especially when they are poor and disabled, ‘not yet useful’ – like the unborn, or ‘no longer needed’ – like the elderly” (18).

Among other topics addressed in this section are the pandemic (32), loss of a sense of history that leads to “new forms of cultural colonization” (14), the spreading of despair and discouragement and using extremism and polarization as political tools (15), unequal respect of universal human rights (22), the fading sense of being part of a “single human family” (30), and poor treatment of migrants crossing borders around the world (37).

In Sunday’s gospel from Luke, Jesus elevates the call to love and care for our neighbors. When asked what the greatest command was, he had two, not one: Love God and love your neighbor as yourself. Everything, he said, depends on these two.

Chapter Two of Fratelli Tutti reflects on perhaps the most well-known parable in the New Testament: The Good Samaritan. Francis warns against the danger of hypocrisy evidenced by the priest and Levite, who passed the injured man without stopping to help: “It shows that belief in God and the worship of God are not enough to ensure that we are actually living in a way pleasing to God (74).” He encourages readers to start small, acting at local levels and then moving out to needs in their countries and in the world. “Difficulties that seem overwhelming are opportunities for growth, not excuses for a glum resignation that can lead only to acquiescence” (78).

Detail from The Good Samaritan by Vincent van Gogh

He writes forceful words about the Samaritan caring for the injured man and what that example means for us:

“… it leaves no room for ideological manipulation and challenges us to expand our frontiers. It gives a universal dimension to our call to love, one that transcends all prejudices, all historical and cultural barriers, all petty interests” (83).

In Sunday’s second reading, St. Paul praises the Thessalonians in part for turning away from idols to serve the true God. When reading about idols in Scripture, I don’t always make the connection to the idols in my life. It’s tempting to relegate them to earlier eras and the worship of statues or images.

But certainly, this age has its idols that get in the way of serving God and joining in the work of bringing God’s kingdom.

Everything, then, depends on our ability to see the need for a change of heart, attitudes and lifestyles.
Pope Francis Fratelli Tutti

Fratelli Tutti makes numerous references throughout to what I would call “idols” today: aggressive nationalism, limitless consumption, individualism, wealth, control, and self-interest to name a few.

Francis sees hope in the midst of the gloom – in willingness to dialogue and engage in genuine encounter, in the desire to love. God has placed goodness in the human heart, and many go about their ordinary days trying to be true neighbors, remembering no one is saved alone; we share the same hope; we sail in the same boat.

These readings and this encyclical are deeply challenging, if we take them seriously. In these times, how can we not? As Pope Francis writes, “Everything, then, depends on our ability to see the need for a change of heart, attitudes and lifestyles” (166).

Thank You, NASA Mars 2020!