Space & The Can-Do Spirit
When It Comes To Space Our Can-Do Attitude Must Prevail
By Dave McDaniel, everyone’s sorta-smart space uncle.
Contents
Getting There
A Better Approach
So Right, And Yet So Wrong
Problems
Extending Our Reach
History Remembers The Victors
You Can Help
The Can’t-Doers Won’t Matter
Lead, Follow, Or …
Can-Do Heroes
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Let’s take a moment to re-frame what our space future will take.
It won’t be easy.
We’re clear on that.
At times it may even seem impossible.
Certainly, as we’ve noted, some small minority will insist that it is.
(Warning: Parts of this may sound grumpy. It’s not, really, it’s just that we need every shoulder to the wheel, and it gets frustrating sometimes.)
Getting There
To get there, in any capacity, will require the very can-do spirit that’s gotten humanity this far. Everything we have today, from mass-produced stick-pins to one-off space stations, we have because at least a handful of us were driven by, and acted on, that can-do spirit.
Not can’t-do.
Can’t-do people are convinced nothing outrageous is possible.
“People can’t fly,” they might insist. “Birds fly, bugs fly, people can’t fly. That’s a crazy idea and you’re a fool for trying.”
They're all about why we can’t.
Why we shouldn’t.
How dangerous it is, how doomed to failure.
What’s the point in being that person?
There are only two possible outcomes if you’re them:
No one ever flies, and you get to smugly say, “I told you so.” Which means you don’t get to fly either. What a great life.
We end up flying, and you look stupid.
Both outcomes are losing propositions.
A Better Approach
Instead of poo-pooing things, help figure out how we can actually make them real.
What if the approach of such people was instead:
“Well, I think it’s crazy to try, but dang, let me think about this. How could we fly? Impossible, I tell you. Only, if we could somehow figure this fool thing out it would sure make life easier. Dang if I see how, though. Well, if you’ve got ideas let’s hear ‘em. I'll support you.”
That spirit is so important. If you find yourself listening to someone who only wants to talk about how we can’t, we invite you to stop listening. You may be losing valuable time. Progress is not about worrying over how we can’t, progress is about deciding how we can.
The bigger the challenge the bigger the solution required, of course, but we don’t stop looking for solutions just because things get hard. We don’t stop seeking answers because someone said we can’t. No matter how many “reasons” they might point to.
Not that their reasons are invalid. The things they worry over may be quite valid, in fact. No, we ignore those people because the way forward is by finding ways to solve those reasons, to do what we decide to do in spite of the obstacles.
So Right, And Yet So Wrong
There are and have been articles, even entire books, on why we “can’t” live in space, why we “can’t” live on Mars, why we can’t this, why we can’t that—you name it and someone somewhere at some point has gone to great lengths to explain to us why it “can’t” be done.
Hogwash.
Anything dedicated to telling us why we can’t do great things is advice we, frankly, don’t need. Why take any of that to heart? If we listen to those people at all it would be for one purpose alone: To get the dissenting view, so maybe we spot a few things we didn’t think of that we need to solve.
Can’t live on Mars because of radiation?
Great. Thanks for pointing that out. Oh, you’re just saying we can’t but not giving any solution?
Fine. We’ll come up with our own.
See? Even the Negative Nancies might find some usefulness in forging our brighter future.
Einstein was a bit less accommodating. His view:
“Stay away from negative people. They have a problem for every solution.”
True enough. Problems are where the “can’t” people live. Everything is a problem.
Funny thing is, they’re not wrong.
Problems
Problems do exist.
Lots of them. For anything.
Where they’re horribly wrong, these doomy people, is in the fallacy of their computation. To them “problem” equals “can’t”.
Which is why they never accomplish great things.
That’s why they never get to be in charge. Their only (semi) useful function in life is, again, to shine a light on things we need to solve.
Maybe that’s what makes them bearable.
Otherwise they’re not helpful.
Because why?
Because the goal of existence isn’t an absence of problems. Life is filled with problems. One might go so far as to say life is problems, the posing and solving of. In case you hadn’t noticed, once you get rid of one problem new ones find their way in. The key—perhaps counter-intuitively—is to embrace them. Relish a good problem, solve it and win.
Then dream up the next one.
Which means we want to make our shift of approach less about avoiding problems, more about the nature and the scale of the problems we choose to take on. Expansion doesn’t tend to happen by solving small problems. Mere existence, basic survival might work by solving small problems; not so much with rapid growth.
We expand through taking on bigger problems, solving those then taking on still bigger problems, then yet bigger problems and on and on.
Extending Our Reach
By extending our reach, grasping for higher branches on the tree, elevating our demand. The greater the challenge, therefore, the greater the reach, the higher the demand, the greater the growth, the greater the challenge …
And so it goes.
Progress is inevitable. People who waste time harping on why we “can’t” usually end up very wrong in the end. History is absolutely overflowing with such examples; people who said we couldn’t and then we did. “Getting there” would never happen if anyone ever listened to those people.
The cycle is simple:
Big things are suggested, grand visions, immediately upon which that small minority with loud voices begin telling us why we shouldn’t.
Why we can’t.
Oh, they’re so clever.
Mars is a great example. Expect the resistance to this to heat up as it gets closer to reality, mainly in the form of very studied reasons why we can’t achieve this next grand target. Why we can’t live there, why this, why that, rarely with any proposed solutions.
Simply why we can’t.
Watch for it.
It’s already begun. The “can’t do” crowd sees the writing on the wall; they’re already trying to get ahead of it. Their squawking will get louder and more floppy-armed, apoplectic-desperate as we get closer, as more targets and milestones are reached.
Count on it.
The more real Mars gets the more squeaky the noises from the can’t-do crowd will get.
Some of us will choose to listen to them.
Those of us the history books will write about, however, will be the ones that choose to ignore them.
History Remembers The Victors
The history books will write about the ones that figure out a way.
“But …” one might be tempted to think. “It really is …”
Look.
We’re gonna do it.
We’re going.
No matter how many degrees you have, no matter how smart you may think you are, no matter how much you may think you know better …
You don’t.
So stop wasting everyone’s time (including your own), cleverly explaining why we “can’t”, and start helping the rest of us figure out how we can.
Man on Mars is inevitable. As is Man among the stars. The question is only, and will always only be, how much resistance the doers among us have to fight through.
Getting there will already take huge ingenuity, resources and sacrifice, even if everyone on the planet was behind it.
So pitch in, would you?
The challenges by themselves are great enough; we can do without the addition of the wholly unnecessary challenge of fighting against those who think we should give up.
Come.
Be a doer.
Be one who finds solutions.
You Can Help
If you catch yourself being a can’t-do person, consider changing your tune. Instead of:
“We can’t do it because XYZ.”
Try:
“To do it we need to consider XYZ. Here are some ideas for how we might solve that problem.”
That’s really all it takes.
For any worthwhile objective (and space is quite worthwhile), the sequence should be:
We can’t do X because of Y.
Here are some ways we could solve Y.
Those two steps go well together.
The more pointless chatter and resistance the rest of us are forced to endure, the more people shout “Can’t!” without offering up solutions, the longer until those next cool things become reality.
But they will become reality.
If we want a thing (wanting it being the key, of course), we will have that thing.
Wanting it, to be clear, means wanting it with no question, 100%.
When our certainty hits that level, things get done.
The cycle goes something like this:
Name it. (With full clarity.)
Want it. (With full intention.)
Get it. (By taking the necessary action.)
The Can’t-Doers Won’t Matter
Sadly, despite a million historical examples of success in the face of “well informed” poo-pooing of grand ideas, the resisters, the can’t-doers, have always and will always be among us.
Again, watch for them.
Know them for what they are.
Example: More headlines against going to Mars will begin to surface in the coming years.
Also know this: they won’t matter in the end.
Headlines about the challenges of going to Mars are fine. Just make sure they include proposed solutions for each challenge named.
Lead, Follow, Or …
And the above, of course, is just one example, Mars. Expect the same with the moon, orbital interests—just about anything aimed toward progress. There will be “those people” that have only negative things to say. Reasons why we shouldn’t. Why we can’t. Why it’s hard. Why it’s dangerous, why it will never work and on and on.
Please. Go away and let the rest of us get the show on the road.
What’s that saying?
Lead, follow, or get the hell out of the way.
Sorry, but negative people frustrate us. Greatly.
Those people do eventually “get there”, of course, but only in the wake of and on the coattails of those who faced up to the challenges and solved the big problems.
Not by being one of the people who shrank from life and decided things couldn’t be done.
Fortunately the world is filled with people taking action. Each of us have opinion leaders we respect, heroes, those we look to when framing our own actions.
That impulse scales.
Can-Do Heroes
Groups, nations—even the entire world can point to individuals at each level they look to, pushing the boundaries of progress. People they count on; people paving the way.
People who have high aspirations for humanity. People who are audacious thinkers.
These individuals not only create our new world, they inspire us to do more.
If we’re not ourselves pushing those boundaries, it’s our job to encourage and support their efforts.
We all win when we do.
This long treatise is meant less for those progress leaders already taking action, more for the rest of us.
The idea being that we begin thinking like them.
If we each dreamed of and took action like an Anousheh Ansari, for example (to use but one of a great many specific examples)—no matter where we started; a dollar in our pocket or a million in the bank—imagine what a difference that would make.
The very tapestry of the world would transform.
That’s the power of the can-do spirit.
Good news is, all it takes is a decision.
Each of us can decide to be part of the can-do crowd.
Our progress as a world depends on it.
Dave
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