Lesson 5.3 Story: Helena’s failed analog mission, told in her own voice

In this lesson we hand the storytelling to a real person who has failed in a real analog mission and recovered.

Helena Vacas — Maya’s Tutor in our protagonist cohort and a senior researcher at NUCLIO — ran an analog mission in 2019 as part of a precursor project. On the third day of that mission, Helena (then in charge of the data acquisition system) forgot to switch the data logger from “standby” to “active” before the start of the night-time observation window. The mission lost six hours of data. The data was the centerpiece of the experimental design. The cohort had been preparing for the night for three weeks.

In a 12-minute video recorded in 2024 specifically for SPHERE, Helena tells this story. She names what she felt in the first ten minutes after she realised what she had done (shame so sharp it felt physical). She names what she did next (walked outside, ten minutes alone, then walked back in and told the team). She names how the team responded (one of them said “Helena, this is the best part of the mission — now we get to redesign on the fly”). She names what she has learned, five years later, about how to debrief failure with a team.

Helena is not a person who ordinarily tells these stories. She agreed to record this one specifically because she has watched too many bright young students stop at Stage 4. The video is a gift. It is also a deliberate piece of pedagogy: when senior researchers tell their failure stories in their own voices, it does more for cohort retention than any motivational poster ever has.

Watch the video. Watch it twice if you have time. The first watch: notice what Helena says. The second watch: notice the small movements in her face when she describes the moment of realisation. Notice that she still, five years later, breathes a little differently when she gets to that part of the story. The body remembers. The body also recovers.

Helena ends with: “Now I tell every cohort: if you find yourself in Stage 4 — and you will — go for the walk. Take the ten minutes. Then come back and tell your team. They will surprise you. The team will surprise you.”

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🎬 [Video — Helena Vacas, NUCLIO — 12 min — subtitles in 6 languages]

📋 Watch the video. In the forum thread for Stage 5, name one move of Helena’s that you want to remember.