Share Lucky Peanuts to Wish Your Team Success / 🇺🇸 USA

At NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, peanuts accompany some of the moments when a mission matters most. The “lucky peanuts” shared around mission control give a team that has prepared together something small to gather around as it hopes for success.

You can take inspiration from the custom before your own important occasion or while watching a spacecraft’s journey. Sharing familiar food adds human warmth to a tense wait, giving everyone a tangible way to express support for the same challenge.

1. Bring edible peanuts when you are preparing to welcome an important challenge.
2. Share them with the people waiting alongside you as a wish for success.
3. Picture the outcome you are working towards and bring your attention to that shared hope.
4. Those enjoying the snack can sit down and eat slowly.

Individual packets make them easy to give out. Following a space-mission broadcast together is an especially fitting occasion for the custom. Holding a little bag can make the people in a distant control room feel more like fellow participants in the same exciting moment.

The story begins with Ranger 7, an uncrewed spacecraft travelling towards the Moon. On its launch day in 1964, trajectory engineer Dick Wallace handed out peanuts to ease the tension in the control room. The mission returned close-up lunar images and became a major success.

Peanuts then became companions for the next challenge at JPL. A custom associated with launches extended to orbital arrivals, close encounters and landings. A team photograph for the Perseverance Mars rover also shows individual lucky-peanut packets. The contrast is delightful: immense machines heading into space, and a little snack held in somebody’s hand. It reveals a wonderfully approachable side of people preparing to attempt very difficult things together.