WEBVTT FILE

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This is a

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checkerboard of a story.

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We've got to do a better job

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of selling ourselves.

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We've got

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a lot more competition now.

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There was no one

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in their right mind

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that would bid

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a laser altimeter.

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We had to convince the management

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that this was not a crazy idea.

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How were we going

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to find the surface of Mars?

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How we're going to track it?

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We were defining the rules as we went.

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As they said in the letter to me,

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If you don't make it on time

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and in budget,

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we will fly a brick instead.

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We're not going to hold this mission up.

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Communications with the Mars Observer spacecraft

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were lost.

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It never crossed my mind

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that spacecraft would let us down.

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Can you get your team back together in time?

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We were only given three years

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to rebuild it.

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This is the first profile of a crater

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we've ever seen on a planet.

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We were in demand

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to provide a laser altimeter to

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another mission.

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What is this mystery we're seeing?

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We started in the worst possible orbit.

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All of the easy missions are done,

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as they say.

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I had sleepless nights

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thinking that I wasn't

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going to be able to make this work.

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And this came out of

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"it can't be done"

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in the mid eighties

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to a tool that we now accept

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as the standard.

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It wasn't a destination or a place

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that we were,

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as much as a place

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that we would become.

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[music]