By Elvis Leon, CEO of Helios Rocketry at Arizona State University
We are so used to seeing people like Leland Melvin on social media, that we come to think of them as just a character inside our phones. Seeing him in person at the Next Frontier Tour was great because it created a sense of realness and allowed for the mind to understand that although he has accomplished many great things, he is still just a human being. It also helps to understand that if he can do those great things then we, the students in the room, can too.
One of the many great things that Leland Melvin said that stuck out to me was, “If you can see it, you can be it.” That idea is something I genuinely believe in and has made a tremendous impact in my life. I personally use it in my life whenever I feel stuck, feel like I can’t do something, or just want to get to that next level.
I used this idea to become the first person in my family to go to college. Until the age of 21, I had never stepped foot on a university campus, so I didn’t believe I could actually go. No one in my family had ever gone to college, so they couldn’t even guide me on how. I didn’t even know what questions to ask regarding the process to go to transferring to a university, because how do you know what you don’t know? But when I stepped onto the Arizona State University (ASU) campus, I knew that’s where I belonged and I used the idea of “If you can see it, you can be it” to get me there. I didn’t know how I was going to pay, but I knew I was going to go there and this idea helped me take actions that eventually led me to me transferring to Arizona State University to study Technological Entrepreneurship and Management on a two year full-ride scholarship through the Next Generation Service Corps program at ASU.
When I first came to ASU I wanted to be involved in the most amazing engineering projects I could find, but I didn’t know if I could really be involved in those projects. Once again, I used the idea of “if you can see it, you can be it” and moved to live on the ASU campus so that I could be involved in AZLoop-Arizona’s SpaceX Hyperloop Pod Competition team. I went to the AZLoop lab, hung around and asked around how I could get on the team. My first year at ASU I joined AZLoop as a business member and within months, I became the business lead for AZLoop for the 2018 SpaceX Hyperloop Competition. For me, participating in the SpaceX Hyperloop Competition and leading the Business Team made me realize I could be involved in engineering projects and thrive.
Having participated in the SpaceX Hyperloop Competition and being part of the team that went to Hawthorne, California for Testing Week, I was lucky enough to get a tour of SpaceX. Stepping inside the SpaceX Headquarters in Hawthorne, I got to see Elon Musk’s life-sized Iron Man statue as you walk onto the cafeteria and factory floor, the SpaceX Dragon capsule, which flew to space, hanging from the ceiling, the mission control, and how they manufacture their rockets.
Seeing all of that made me believe I could be involved in space. So when I heard about the Base 11 Space Challenge, the idea formed in my head that I could start a team to compete. Now I’m leading Helios Rocketry, competing in the Base 11 Space Challenge, and meeting amazing individuals like Leland Melvin.
I hope that others took away valuable lessons from Melvin’s story, and I hope to provide opportunities for all of the members on my team, like the ones I mentioned above, so they too can realize that “if you can see it, you can be it,” and that they learn to use this idea to move them forward in life.
Follow Helios Rocketry on Instagram.
Learn more about the Base 11 Space Challenge.