Why Did We Choose to Go to the Moon?…Really?
How Challenge Mobilizes us From Genes to Nations
In January 2023, Amit was invited to submit a presentation to NASA in consideration of him being a NASA sponsored speaker. His presentation, entitled “Beyond Weightlessness” was eventually selected to be in the NASA Library of Resources under the Convergent Aeronautics Solutions Project.
That talk explored how we humans obey natural universal laws. How laws of physics apply to the workings of our minds. How these same laws help you move beyond weightlessness. The weight under consideration were the challenges – what most of us perceive as baggage that weighs us down.
As a young child, still much more affected by the perseverations so common in Autism, Amit had a major perseveration around airplanes and flight. So that NASA might invite him to submit a presentation was perhaps not a random event.
That invitation to present sparked research into the origins of NASA and it became clear that a perception of challenge, massive challenge, was key to the development of NASA and to the development of Amit.
NASA itself states that its birth was “directly related to the pressures of national defense.” The USA and the Soviet Union were engaged in the Cold War after World War II. When the Soviets launched Sputnik 1, the world’s first artificial satellite, on October 4, 1957, it was more than the USA could bear. Resources of man and money were rapidly assembled as the USA sought to catch up.
In this article, we shall explore the critical importance of challenge to our evolution.
In our Live Member session, we shall discuss in more detail the topic of Resources. How we will tackle a challenge and what resources we will bring to bear are one of the first considerations when we encounter challenge.
In our article last month, Potholes and other Underestimated RISKS of the Road Less Traveled, we showed that there is always risk. If you don’t perceive it, it’s only because you are blind to it, perhaps willfully blind. The same is true for challenge. There is always challenge.
Throughout history, it has been known that if you want to attract support you seek challenge. Historical wars have been fought and lives lost in the name of protecting religious idealisms from attack by outsiders.
When someone we look up to tells us that our ‘sacred beliefs’ are under attack from ‘non-believers’ i.e. the outgroup, it is easier to attract support from our fellow believers. This is even to the point of sacrificing their lives for the ‘cause.’ It is interesting to note that this applies even when those beliefs didn’t even arise within us, but we are told by some authority what those ‘sacred’ beliefs are! Nevertheless, if we manage to convince others that we are challenged, we are more likely to attract support.
President John F. Kennedy knew that too. On May 25 1961, he announced "I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to Earth." That was a direct response to Soviet successes in space – a challenge to the USA’s claim of being the frontrunner in technology and defence.
Kennedy used Apollo as a “high-profile effort for the U.S. to demonstrate to the world its scientific and technological superiority over its cold war adversary” (NASA files). He continued in his famous speech to Rice University “we seek to go to the moon, not because it is easy, but because it is hard.” Embrace challenge, attract support.
Dr. Jordan Peterson didn’t go deliberately seeking challenge. We recently had an opportunity to see him present live and to meet with him after the presentation. He reiterated in person what is in his books – he was merely trying to ‘tell the truth or at least not lie’ as he saw it. Yet in choosing to take this stand, taking on a huge challenge it turns out, he has attracted the support of hundreds of millions. This has come with attendant challenges of course – and we have invited Dr. Peterson to explore that.
So, we have evidence that taking on challenge does mobilize a nation and hundreds of millions of individuals of many nations.
On September 21, 1987, President Ronald Reagan at the General Assembly of the UN showed exactly how a perception of challenge might mobilize the whole world: “In our obsession with antagonisms of the moment, we often forget how much unites all members of humanity…how quickly our differences worldwide would vanish if we were facing an alien threat from outside this world.” If we were to perceive we are under attack from, or challenged by, some ‘outgroup’, all in the ‘ingroup’ now join in support.
That is the exact reason that cleverly leveraging competition within our own companies or with outside competitors is such a strong motivator for progress and production.
We know this is true in our own lives. We are more likely to help an old woman struggling to balance a sack of rice on her head than an athlete carrying one plateful.
We want to help the underdog and we want to help those carrying a heavier load.
Yet, we seek to smother our children with support. Dr. John Demartini surmises that if a child perceives an excess of support, that is more likely to result in them being juvenile delinquents. Meanwhile, if they perceive an excess of challenge, it is more likely to inspire them to be precocious independents.
When I thought that my parents were going to seek financial support for my care from the state in 2006, I announced that I would study and ‘write e-Books’ to support myself. E-books were a relatively recent ‘invention’ at that time – but I was determined that I was not going to be a ‘charity case.’ Seeking to ‘not be a charity case’ was a challenge that fueled an entrepreneurial spirit from early in my life.
As societies get more ‘fat’ with privilege as opposed to ‘lean’ from restriction, many who are influential in society think that it is proper to proffer progressively more support often without an explicit stated cost. When we do this, we run the risk of weakening the recipient. They are less fit to deal with the world and the inevitable larger challenges that loom.
Without a perception of challenge, evolution slows. As our external environment became less homogenous and more complex, the need for specialization developed. With this, there was even more need to evolve more rapidly.
The development of biological sex differentiation that we eventually labelled masculine or feminine was in response to a need to evolve more effectively and more efficiently to a changing environment.
The genes we carry and pass on are the result of perceived challenges in the environment. The Epi-genetic tags we carry and pass on are the result of charges not yet balanced. The memes we carry and pass on are the result of emotional charges we have not yet balanced too.
Times of war and the associated austerity have also been the periods of the most prolific technological advance. Here are the top technological advances that owe their evolution in large part to war:
Nuclear Technology: The Manhattan project, which led to the creation of the atomic bomb, was a scientific and technological undertaking on a scale never seen before. After the war, this technology evolved for use in nuclear power plants which many believe is one of the most sustainable and clean sources of energy going forward.
The Internet: The Internet's precursor, the ARPANET, was funded by the U.S. Department of Defense during the Cold War. The goal was to create a communications network that would still function even if parts of it were destroyed in a nuclear war. ARPANET was the first network to use the packet-switching technology that forms the basis of the modern Internet.
Radar and Sonar: These were developed and significantly refined during both World War I and II. The technology has evolved since then and is now used in air traffic control, meteorology, and even in some kinds of medical imaging and automotive safety systems.
In supposed times of peace (which don’t actually exist because there was the Cold War), America went to the moon in part to establish that they were superior to the Soviets. The ensuing ‘Space Race’ and the required Satellite technology, put us on track for the James Webb Telescope, the Parker Solar Probe, and eventually to Mars.
Perceived shortage of air, water, and food lead to commitment of resources and innovation that perceived abundance would never foster.
Perceived risk of loss leads to us valuing and protecting our resources.
A child raised without limits from a parent or equivalent, is eventually limited by a peer, a teacher, an employer, the law. And if they don’t heed those limits, they might put their life itself at risk.
Workplace ‘benefits’ without a requirement for productivity might work in ‘fat’ times but might lead to collapse of the employer / business in more ‘lean’ times.
Access to funding from any outside agent (over-indulgent partner, an employer, a creditor, the state) – often perceived as support – if not matched with corresponding levels of responsibility, accountability, or productivity – often perceived as challenge – eventually leads to loss of dignity. This can foster a state of dependency and a perception of victimhood - as there is never enough to satisfy the recipient when it is perceived that there is no cost to them. The very act of giving without apparent expectation of anything in return, itself breeds challenge.
This might so far appear to be theoretical, so we invite you to do this exercise yourself:
Where in your life do you perceive that you have more support than challenge?
Who is providing that support, that perceived benefit, to you?
What is the drawback (the challenge) to you of receiving that support?
What at first might appear to be unadulterated support, a benefit, comes with simultaneous challenge, drawback, when we care enough to go looking.
As you do this exercise (yes, we did intend for you to do it!), it is understandable that you may at first miss perceiving the challenge. For instance, it may not be initially obvious that you might feel indebted to the provider. You perceive that you owe them something in return. In some way it is as though the giver and the receiver both understand the economic law of sustainable and instantaneous fair exchange. They give to you today with an expectation of return (with interest perhaps) at some point in the future. Perhaps it’s in dollars, perhaps in favors, and perhaps in votes. Support is never free.
Just as we stated there is always risk, we state here there is always challenge. You might be just temporarily blind to it – perhaps even wilfully blind to the challenge that does exist.
Thus far, we have argued for the universality of challenge.
We wish to emphasize one additional critical point: The exact same external challenge is perceived differently by each individual.
Rather than another theoretical discussion, we shall illustrate that with an event from our own lives.
A psychologist, trying to be kind, told Kumar and Pratima (Amit’s parents) that they “didn’t need to worry because Amit would qualify for a teaching assistant in school.” The psychologist thought he was taking a load OFF my parents. However, my parents decided that that was NOT the life they wanted for their son. Instead, they chose the heavier load, the less travelled road, to help me get here. Each piece of baggage has a different weight depending on who is bearing it…
As in the now famous poem by an unknown author about COVID-19 – an excerpt of which we provide here:
“…For some, quarantine is optimal: a moment of reflection, of re-connection.
For others, this is a desperate crisis.
For others it is facing loneliness.
For some, a peace, rest time, vacation.
Yet for others, Torture: How am I going to pay my bills?...”
Don’t assume you are in the same boat or even facing the same storm.
It is important to note that the same external challenge may be perceived differently by each individual depending on their values, prior perceptions, and accumulated baggage. Eg. Something as simple as a deadline for a project means different things to different individuals. The end result is that the challenge is perceived as unique to each.
Your prior history, experiences, moments of love and moments of charge, all impact on how you perceive any given situation including any perception of challenge.
All of these too directly impact on your perception of the resources that you might bring to bear to tackle any challenge you face.
That is precisely what we shall help you do when you join us for our exclusive Live Member Session on June 20, 2023 at 5:00 PM Mountain Time.
Before that though, we encourage you to get the first glimpse of Amit’s talk to NASA which we will provide as this month's exclusive Member Teaching.
Until the next perfect time…
Amit and Kumar Ramlall
PS… In our extended Member teaching, which you can access by joining us here, we will provide you access to the full presentation that Amit submitted to NASA. What was it that led the committee to include that presentation in NASA’s Library of Resources? On a more personal note, come see whom Amit credits as the three most influential people in his life…and he didn’t pick his parents!