The original Moon shot......

......excerpt from today's message to the company

"So many of our dreams at first seem impossible, then they seem improbable, and then when we summon the will, they soon become inevitable." - Christopher Reeve

It was 60 years ago today on May 25, 1961 that President John F. Kennedy stood before a joint session of Congress and publicly called for a man on the moon by the end of the decade. This challenge mobilized and inspired a nation and pushed forward science in all aspects. It was a common goal and one that was incredible. To say this was ambitious and a reach would be an understatement. To put this audacious challenge in perspective first take for a moment and consider that the collective time the United States had in space was 15 minutes, and by the way, that 15 minutes occurred 20 days prior to this very speech with Alan Shepard's suborbital space flight. It was a massive call to action, one that would occupy classrooms, laboratories, testing facilities, and space itself. It would require testing, failing, learning, and overcoming challenges of every sort.  

I have included an excerpt of the speech below for you to read. Hear it in your mind with Kennedy's New England accent, and feel the inspiration and call to do something that is greater than any one person. Because this was greater than one person, this required a nation to collectively believe we would achieve that goal of putting a human on the moon by the end of the decade. If one stopped too long to think about the enormity of the challenge, one would quickly feel overwhelmed with the impossibility and improbability of that massive goal. Goals of this magnitude require the belief in team and mission, with failing not being an option.

This was literally the first moon shot project, and would be the inspiration for generations of future achievers.  

Team, you and your goals are inevitable when you summon the will to achieve them. Potrero is inevitable because we collectively summon the will to achieve our audacious goals. Team, think about this for a moment, every time we focus together on a challenge, we overcome that challenge. Every time we set a goal that is bigger than any one person within the organization, and every time we have overcome that challenge, we have become stronger and more capable. Our mission and goals are tremendous, and can only be achieved with all of us collectively focusing on them. Protecting the kidney is a mission we cannot lose, and we will not lose, and we are on our way to achieving that goal of changing the status quo. Push yourself today to think a little bigger, challenge yourself and those around you to achieve more, and always maintain a positive mindset. We are on our way....

President Kennedy's speech:

“...if we are to win the battle that is now going on around the world between freedom and tyranny, the dramatic achievements in space which occurred in recent weeks should have made clear to all of us, as did Sputnik in 1957, the impact of this adventure on the minds of men everywhere... Now it is time to take longer strides—time for this nation to take a clearly leading role in space achievement, which in many ways may hold the key to our future on Earth. ...we have never made the national decisions or marshaled the national resources required for such leadership. We have never specified long-range goals on an urgent time schedule... Space is open to us now; and our eagerness to share its meaning is not governed by the efforts of others. We go into space because whatever mankind must undertake, free men must fully share...

I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth. No single space project...will be more exciting, or more impressive to mankind, or more important...and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish...” -President John F. Kennedy, May 1961

ALWAYS FORWARD!!!!

Joe

This is a series of articles based on the daily letters that I write to my company (slightly modified - company specifics removed). My hope is to share some positive thoughts that gently push the world toward positive thinking and encourage many to achieve their fullest God-given potential