Wit & Attitude Quote by Steven Squyres

Panic, but make it procedural. Steven Squyres, the Mars rover scientist who turned exploration into a series of deadlines, lands this line with the blunt urgency of someone who knows nature doesn’t negotiate. “Drive like hell” is wonderfully unscientific phrasing for a scientist, which is exactly why it works: it punctures the stereotype of calm, white-coated rationality and replaces it with the truth of fieldwork and engineering under constraint. Space missions aren’t grand philosophical journeys; they’re frantic sprints against physics, power budgets, and unforgiving seasons.

The phrase “get to the hills” carries the hidden map. On Mars, hills aren’t scenic; they’re survival infrastructure. Elevation can mean better sunlight angles for solar panels, safer terrain, or access to layered rock exposures that justify the whole mission. “Before the winter sets in” is the real antagonist: not a villain you can outthink, but an environmental clock that will quietly starve the rover of energy and end the science. Squyres compresses that into one seasonal image everyone understands, then spikes it with the adrenaline of “like hell.”

The intent is motivational but also managerial. It’s a way to translate arcane mission planning into a narrative the team can feel in their bodies: move now or lose the opportunity. Subtext: we are not in control, we are racing for a narrow window, and our most brilliant work depends on something as banal as weather - even on another planet. That’s the modern romance of science: not certainty, but disciplined urgency.