The Secret of Success

He thinks he is fast approaching his desired destination whereas, as per the consequence of his approach, he is going further away from his goal. Staying Cool The most delicate and dangerous part of space journeys is when the spacecraft returns to the earth’s atmosphere. Take the case of the Apollo-8 spacecraft, for instance. Before the capsule touched down on December 27, 1985, it had to negotiate a precipitous return to the earth’s atmosphere. Because of the earth’s gravity—seven times that of outer space—the speed of the spacecraft soared, reaching an astronomical 39,000 kilometres per hour. Because of its extraordinary speed, the heat of the spacecraft rose to terrifying proportions. Air friction started heating up the space vessel as soon as it entered the earth’s atmosphere. Soon it became literally red hot, reaching a temperature of 3,300 degrees Celsius. No animal can survive at such a temperature. How was it, then, that the three American astronauts aboard the craft were able to remain unaffected by the blazing inferno that had built up around them? The reason that they were able to return safely to earth was that the spacecraft in which they were traveling had been constructed in such a way that its interior would not be affected by the severity of conditions on the outside. In spite of the incredible heat on the outside, inside the craft the temperature was just 21 degrees Celsius. Imagine—3,300 degrees on the outside, 21 degrees on the inside! This event out of the realm of space travel has an important lesson to teach us in our lives on earth. Time and again in life we run into highly charged situations. Outwardly, it seems impossible to go on. Under such conditions,