Mae Jemison Went to Space in 1992 — What's Your Excuse for Not Shipping?
On September 12, 1992, NASA launched Space Shuttle Endeavour on mission STS-47 — the 50th shuttle mission in history. Among the crew was Dr. Mae Carol Jemison, who that day became the first African-American woman ever to travel to space. It was a milestone decades in the making, built not on luck or a single dramatic moment, but on a relentless stack of credentials: medical degree, Peace Corps service, engineering background, and multiple NASA rejection cycles before finally making the crew roster. She didn't just show up — she showed up prepared.
Here's what strikes me about that story from a tech and business perspective: the Endeavour didn't launch because the conditions were perfect. It launched because the team did the work — the training, the iterations, the redundant systems, the unglamorous checklist runs at 3am. Most of the software projects and business transformations I see struggle not because the people aren't smart enough, but because everyone's waiting for the "right time" to commit. Jemison didn't wait for the right time. She built herself into someone who created the right time.
Whether you're leading a dev team, pushing a product to launch, or trying to modernize your company's infrastructure — the lesson from September 12, 1992 is straightforward: preparation compounds. Every skill you add, every system you document, every tough problem you push through instead of around, you're stacking the launchpad higher. The mission doesn't care how you felt during the prep work. It only cares whether you did it. So — what are you stacking today?