"It is your turn"

Those were the last words of Walter Cunningham's (Apollo 7 astronaut) speech during the event I'm participating in: Starmus festival 2014, here in south Tenerife.

We've been listening to some of the greatest minds in the world: Stephen Hawking, Robert Wilson (Nobel), Richard Dawkins, Mark Boslough, Charlie Duke (Apollo 16 astronaut), Harold Kroto (Nobel), and many more. It's been inspiring to me to have the privilege to witness something this big.


As you can imagine, this week has been a break on my programming duties, on behalf of the event, because i can't enlarge the daytime. I keep waking up for a run, but I'm being forced to use all the afternoon time to move to the Starmus location, stay there, and come back before midnight. So... Why am i writing about this? Because having this is something UNIQUE, and i wanted to share it with you. Specially the last words of Walter Cunningham's.

What he meant, if you were there listening those words on the proper context (Mars background), was that we need to stop thinking about creating and living in a free-risk world when it comes to space exploration, and if we extrapolate it into our topic's terms it becomes clear. We, you and me, and everyone who's willing to succeed, need to be a risk-taker person, not being afraid of fighting for what we believe in. Even if it's the last thing we can achieve. Period.

I use to listen some of these sort of speeches when I'm heading to my running track in the park. To warm up my mind, my willpower, and my purpose for the day. As Will Smith once told, you have to put a brick the best way you can, a perfect placing of it every single day, if you want to see a full wall finished some day.

And if i may quote Walter, "now it is your turn".