NASA Mars Perseverance Excerpt: Remarks by President Biden at the 2021 Virtual Munich Security Conference
Look, the range of challenges Europe and the United States must take on together is broad and complex. And I’m eager to hear — I’m eager to hear — I’m eager to hear next from my good friends and outstanding leaders, Chancellor Merkel, about her thoughts on the way forward together.
So let me conclude with this: We cannot allow self-doubt to hinder our ability to engage each other or the larger world. The last four years have been hard. But Europe and the United States have to lead with confidence once more, with faith in our capacities, a commitment to our own renewal, with trust in one another and the ability of Europe and the United States to meet any challenge to secure our futures together.
I know we can do this. We’ve done it before. Just yesterday — after a seven-month, 300-million mile journey — NASA successfully landed the Perseverance Rover on Mars. It’s on a mission of exploration, with elements contributed by our European partners to seek evidence of the possibility of life beyond our planet and the mysteries of the universe.
Over the next few years — “Percy” is (inaudible) call — but Perseverance will range and collect samples from the Red Planet and pile them up so another mission and rover, envisioned as a joint effort between NASA and the European Space Agency, will retrieve this trove of scientific wonders and bring it home to all of us.
That’s what we can do together. If our unbound capacity to carry us to Mars and back don’t tell us anything else, they tell us we can meet any challenge we can face on Earth. We have everything we need. And I want you to know the United States will do — we’ll do our part. We’ll stand with you. We’ll fight for our shared values. We’ll meet the challenges of this new moment in history.
America is back. So let’s get together and demonstrate to our great, great grandchildren, when they read about us, that democracy — democracy — democracy functions and works, and together, there is nothing we can’t do. So let’s get working.
Thank you all very much. Thank you, folks.
