We’ve just landed another rover on the planet Mars.
Last night, the world watched the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) on their NASA television channel announce the successful landing of an automobile-sized robot on the planet Mars.
The speakers at their celebratory announcement gathering came forward to speak and take questions from the press. Speakers included the Director of the program as well as lead engineers.
The emotion in the room was palpable even from my living room chair, thousands of miles away.
So what does NASA landing a robot on Mars have to do with entrepreneurship you ask?
Entrepreneurship is rooted in a simple concept, to find a need then fill that need.
This latest mission to Mars was focused on landing a rover with more research capabilities than its predecessors.
The scientific community wanted to know if there is the capacity for life as we know it on Mars, or if there is any evidence of previous life on Mars.
Named “Curiosity”, this newest chunk of Earth-constructed materials plunked on the surface of Mars has more capabilities to gather this information and send it back to researchers here on Earth.
This project started as virtually any other innovative business would.
The stated need was to get a more sophisticated rover to Mars and have it communicate back to scientists here on Earth.
A team was gathered to identify all the various challenges, gather and organize resources such as humans, computer processing power, and money and to execute a solution to address the stated objective.
These are the same steps that any individual would do in order to open a business.
First, the idea. Second, the proof of consumer demand. Third, the planning of necessary resources (humans, money). Fourth, acquiring resources. Fifth, executing the plan. Lastly, measuring results.
The United States as a country, NASA, the various contractors that contributed their individual pieces, parts, and knowledge, and the world that was watching last night all shared a success. A business success.
The assembled press throng applauded the myriad engineers as if they were rock stars. There were smiles, tears and high-fives amongst the gathered parties.
The emotional state of the room from which the NASA engineers faced the press and other interested parties was vibrant and similar to business grand openings and “1,000,000th customer” and contest winner announcements from more typical business organizations.
The spirit that was raised last night upon the successful landing of the Curiosity Mars rover displayed the raw emotions that can stem from business success.
Congratulations to the NASA team for showing us a great technical achievement as well as a terrific team and business success.
