Watch these two NASA employees celebrate the probe landing on Mars with a charmingly nerdy handshake pic.twitter.com/ZVADqHjTXT
— Brian Koerber (@bkurbs) November 26, 2018
When two NASA engineers watched the InSight mission land on Mars, they celebrated like 49ers.
On Monday, the probe landed on Mars, culminating a seven-month long journey through space. NASA employees, as you’d expect, erupted in celebration. Two descent and landing systems engineers, identified as Brooke Harper and Gene Bonfiglio, summoned a touchdown dance you may have seen before.
During the live stream at NASA headquarters, the two were depicted performing the same handshake that 49ers receivers Marquise Goodwin and Kendrick Bourne spawned during a touchdown celebration in San Francisco’s 38-27 loss to the Kansas City Chiefs in Week 3. Harper, a Chiefs fan, and Bonfiglio, a Patriots fan, enjoyed the handshake and spent the following six weeks perfecting it.
Come for the Marquise Goodwin TDs, stay for the Kendrick Bourne dance. #49ers pic.twitter.com/05ZE0CnaPr
— Akash Anavarathan (@akashanav) September 23, 2018
“We saw something that we liked from a previous game, (and) we kind of mimicked it after that,” Harper said in a video on NASA’s Twitter page. “I’m going to get hate for this because it was a touchdown scored against the Chiefs, but (it was) Marquise Goodwin from the 49ers. However, I will say, it’s a great touchdown dance.”
“He does it way better than we do,” Bonfiglio chimed in.