Building a high-tech instrument...

for the next Mars rover, in a clean room, with gloved hands, one itsy bitsy piece at a time. In a couple of words: skill and patience.

Dan Carrigan is the brother of a very good friend of mine, CC, and we've all spent some time together exploring canyon country in southern Utah. He is shown here assembling a component of the Sample Analysis at Mars Instrument Suite (SAM).

Think about the sense of pride and accomplishment he must feel to have a hand in building these one-of-a-kind devices, then to see your instrument launched to various destinations in our solar system and perform, most of the time, flawlessly and for longer periods than originally intended.

Keep up the great work, Dan.