Monday, August 6, 2012

My Gold Medal Goes to....

Achievements in Olympics reflect huge sacrifices, long years of training and planning and performing under high pressure in front of a global audience.  The feats of these athletes serve as inspiration for us common mortals and help to hopefully unite the world.

While the London Olympics are underway, something even more difficult than any individual or team performance and more awe inspiring just took place - the landing of a huge rover on Mars using a maneuver never used before after 7 minutes of terror.  Here is a video explaining the difficult procedure.


Very early this morning (EST) Curiosity landed successfully on the surface of Mars and sent back its first images.  The world cheered but the video of the NASA team watching with bated breath and then their emotions when they got the good news brought tears to my eyes.


Without belittling the performance of the athletes, if I had to give a gold medal it would easily go to the NASA team for their amazing work in the face of budget cuts and political uncertainties.  Congratulations NASA!  

This post was prompted by an online conversation on Google+ with @Brad Gill one of the many brilliant students to come out of our medical school. 

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