Honoring the legacy of the metal fabrication industry's ability to reach the stars

Ed Youdell, the Fabricators & Manufacturers Association's president, asks metal fabricators: What is your company's moonshot? Getty Images

On Feb. 18 the rover Perseverance landed on the surface of Mars in the Jezero Crater after traveling 293 million miles in just a little over 203 days. It was an unbelievable accomplishment for the NASA engineers, scientists, and technicians who worked together to both conceive and execute the mission. Surviving the “seven minutes of terror”—the point in the mission when entry, descent, and landing occur at a pace much quicker than the radio signals providing updates can reach Earth from Mars—had to be stress-filled for all of those involved, but the end result had to be worth the short-term nerves.

Perseverance is now the fifth rover to land successfully on Mars, joining Sojourner, Opportunity, Spirit, and Curiosity. Perseverance is the perfect name for this rover. Not only does it capture all of the hard work and long hours required to pull off such a mission, but the name also aptly summarizes what we’ve all been through over the past 12 months. Perseverance has been required as the metal fab industry’s leaders and professionals have had to deal with changing work dynamics brought on by the pandemic, state-mandated shutdowns, and political discourse that has tested most everyone’s patience and perseverance.

COVID-19 continues to occupy our nation’s consciousness, and I find myself wondering if I were to ask 25 people to name the Mars rover, could they tell me? Have we as a nation become too distracted by the likes of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle to appreciate this incredible scientific achievement? NASA’s website describes Perseverance’s mission as follows: “The Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover will search for signs of ancient microbial life, which will advance NASA's quest to explore the past habitability of Mars. The rover has a drill to collect core samples of Martian rock and soil, then store them in sealed tubes for pickup by a future mission that would ferry them back to Earth for detailed analysis. Perseverance will also test technologies to help pave the way for future human exploration of Mars.”

The last sentence of the mission’s description is incredibly bold and exciting. It’s difficult for me to picture humans someday landing on Mars because I don’t think that such an event will occur in my lifetime. Yet as sure as I’m sitting here in my living room writing this, I believe they will.

Considering this idea, I’m drawn back to Sept. 12, 1962, when President John F. Kennedy delivered his famous moon speech, largely written by his aide Ted Sorensen. On that day Kennedy laid down a bold vision for space exploration for his audience at Rice Stadium in Houston, declaring that by the end of the decade the U.S. would send a manned spacecraft to the moon.

As I read the speech, I found several passages that apply to current times as well. “We meet in an hour of change and challenge, in a decade of hope and fear, in an age of both knowledge and ignorance. The greater our knowledge increases, the greater our ignorance unfolds.” These words bring to mind how Google, Twitter, and TikTok appropriately challenge both knowledge and ignorance.

Kennedy continued, “So it is not surprising that some would have us stay where we are a little longer to rest, to wait. But this city of Houston, this state of Texas, this country of the United States was not built by those who waited and rested and wished to look behind them. This country was conquered by those who moved forward—and so will space. But why, some say, the moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask why climb the highest mountain? Why, 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic? Why does Rice play Texas? We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.”

On July 20, 1969, just short of seven years to the day Kennedy unveiled this bold pursuit to the world, Apollo 11 came to rest on the surface of the moon after traveling 240,000 miles in space. I was 6 years old when that happened, and I will never forget being in our family room in Watervliet, Mich., gathered around the black and white Zenith console television set with my parents, grandparents, sister, aunt, and uncle, watching Neil Armstrong step on the surface of the moon. The brilliance of President Kennedy’s challenge is that it was an endeavor that bound our entire nation together for a common goal and purpose. As a nation, it would seem now is as good a time as any for our president to do something similar.

So, I ask you, the metal fabrication industry’s job shop owners, leaders, and professionals, what is your company’s moonshot? What is the goal that will serve to organize and measure the best of its energies and skills? Are you going to stay where you are a little longer to rest, to wait? Or are you ready to move forward? What challenge are you willing to accept, unwilling to postpone, and intending to win?