Perseverance: the continued effort to do or achieve something despite difficulties, failure, or opposition. Steadfastness and the ability to overcome.
As I reflect on this past year, I think this could be the word which sums it all up. Perseverance. Overcoming obstacles, challenges, failures, and carrying on.
After all, we have been living with the COVID-19 pandemic since January 2020. It has changed our lives. Mask wearing is the new normal as is social distancing. Travel is restricted. Work, for some people, involves rolling out of bed and turning on the computer for a Zoom meeting. We all are missing social interactions.
On a macro-scale, the pandemic has crippled our economy, disrupted supply lines, and imposed massive deficits and debt in every country. Yet, despite all of the disruptions and difficulties, COVID-19 has caused, we will persevere. We will get through it.
COVID-19 wasn’t the only disrupter this past year. Massive wildfires in Australia, Brazil, and California left many dead and large areas destroyed. People have been displaced. Livelihoods have been ruined. The cost has been staggering. Perseverance in the face of these disasters is at the heart and soul of the human race.
Then there was the whole debacle of the U.S. presidential election and subsequent insurrection at the behest of the outgoing president. And the sight, among others, of Sen. Mitch McConnell declaring the ex-president should be dealt with in the criminal courts while he himself declared he would not vote to condemn Trump’s actions. Bizarre. But the United States will persevere.
Last week, we have all watched as the southern United States was battered by a particularly vicious winter storm which left texas bereft of power. Unable to tap into the national grid, the whole state essentially went dark due to the inability of natural gas and coal-fired electrical power plants to operate.
Yes, the governor blames the black outs on wind turbines but that is obfuscation: an attempt to deflect from a failed political program of electricity deregulation and a lack of investment in infrastructure.
But the good people of Texas will persevere.
This past year was rife with other challenges. A measles epidemic in New Zealand and the Pacific Islands, political disruption in Hong Kong, protests in Russia after an attempted assassination of a political rival, protests in Belarus over a dubious election, and the whole Black Lives Matter movement south of the border and around the world.
When are we humans going to finally recognize that a person is a person is a person regardless of colour, ethnicity, gender, sex, age, or political affiliations? When are all people going to be treated with respect? Yet, we persevere. We shall overcome.
So it is perhaps apt that this past week NASA landed the Perseverance rover on Mars. Bigger, smarter, and with a lot more scientific equipment than previous missions, Perseverance descended through seven minutes of terror as it entered the Martian atmosphere, aero-braking as it decelerated, finally deploying its parachute and releasing its sky crane.
It overcame the difficulties inherent in its long journey – half a billion kilometres – between Earth and Mars. It successfully established its orbit and then landed with barely a bump in the Jezero Crater. And within minutes of landing, it was transmitting pictures back to Earth of its surroundings.
Its mission has four science objectives. The first is to identify past environments capable of possibly supporting microbial life at some point in the past. To accomplish this, it landed at what appears to be an ancient lakebed near the outflow of a river delta. On Earth, this would be a good place to find evidence of life.
Its second objective is to explore for evidence of life within these habitable sites. In particular, it is looking for minerals and rocks with particular chemical signatures and/or traces of compounds linked to life as we know it.
Its third objective is to collect rock and soil samples, bundle them into containers for a retrieval mission to take place in a few years. The European Space Agency is working with NASA to develop a system for bringing Mars samples back to Earth for further study.
Its final objective is to make oxygen from Martian rocks. If humans are ever to envision travelling to Mars, being able to make oxygen is mission critical.
And if we are to live elsewhere in the solar system, such missions must persevere.
I would like to finish by saying a few words about a good man. Mike Benny passed away recently. He was a witty, charming, and generous person. He and I worked on the development and first few seasons of Quizme! He persevered through his illness but in the end succumbed to the disease. He will be missed.
