Thread by @corrinerojas

This photo is meaningful to my career as a planetary scientist even though I’m not affiliated with this mission in any way, and this is a short thread why. I’m quickly learning how different my experience has been and prob why it’s necessary to yell about it to the internet. 1/9

This photo was taken and released roughly 5 years ago, mid-July 2015. The first time I saw this, I remember pulling up the front page of reddit while waiting at the bank to ask them to forgive an overdraft fee because I was a really, really broke undergrad student. 2/9

I remember reading the reddit comments about what a large team it took to make this photo happen. Hours of planning, tens of people involved from all over the country. “More than 5 people total, got it.” I had no idea what it was like to plan and execute photos like this. 3/9

But the comments FASCINATED me. I just changed my major after being in the wrong discipline & almost flunking out of college. Even with the change in study area (to #GIS), I had no idea that in 2020, I‘d be affiliated with NASA mission #3 and have a role in spacecraft operations.

I had no idea that 5 years later I would be getting ready to launch a spacecraft I would be intimately involved with onto Mars!!!

#Mars2020Rover @NASAPersevere (shout out to @LRO_NASA for the early career start for this former undergrad!!)
5/9

I still don’t have an expert-level idea of how mission operations work, especially since each mission is its own unique, beautiful, wonderfully chaotic journey with regards to both its hardware and its people. 6/9

But today I rejoice, against a global pandemic that has stopped the world in many ways, that despite humankind’s worst vices, exploration is our imperative. Exploration is something we long to do, and something we should keep fighting to do. 7/9

Not because it’s easy, not necessarily because it’s hard, but because questioning our origins is just the beginning to finding the answers to our place in space. Both physically, and in our brutally human souls: our place in space. 8/9

Thank you, Pluto, the guardian and gatekeeper of our solar system, for reminding me of my “why” during this hard time. And shout out to the teams at @NASA @JHUAPL and @SwRI for making this photo a reality just when this tiny human being needed it! ✨ 9/9