Astronaut shares the big 'lie' he realised after seeing the Earth during 178 days in space
An astronaut who spent nearly six months in space has shared the 'lie' that he realised about the Earth while looking at our home planet from among the stars.
It won't be long until your average Joe will be heading up into space, given Katy Perry was allowed up there earlier this year, but it is fair to say that whoever heads above the Earth's atmosphere usually has a life-changing experience.
As long as you don't get stuck up in space, the idea of popping up and seeing the Earth sounds pretty spectacular.
If Jeff Bezos has any money left over from his recent extravagant wedding to Lauren Sanchez, he may well go ahead with his reported plans for space hotel, which could make space flights far more common.
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But for now, we simply have to live vicariously through the well-trained astronauts who head up there on a regular basis and imagine what it is like to see Earth with our own eyes.
For former NASA space cadet Ron Garan, it was truly a transformative period as he experienced something known as the 'overview effect' which is an uninterrupted view of the globe.
The cognitive shift which is prompted by this is something researchers compare to a 'state of awe with self-transcendent qualities', and for Garan it was a realisation that we're living a lie - and no, it wasn't that the Earth is actually flat.
Sharing what he saw, the 63-year-old said: "When I looked out the window of the International Space Station, I saw the paparazzi-like flashes of lightning storms, I saw dancing curtains of auroras that seemed so close it was as if we could reach out and touch them.
"And I saw the unbelievable thinness of our planet's atmosphere. In that moment, I was hit with the sobering realisation that that paper-thin layer keeps every living thing on our planet alive.
"I saw an iridescent biosphere teeming with life. I didn't see the economy. But since our human-made systems treat everything, including the very life-support systems of our planet, as the wholly owned subsidiary of the global economy, it's obvious from the vantage point of space that we're living a lie."
"We need to move from thinking economy, society, planet to planet, society, economy," Garan continued.
"That's when we're going to continue our evolutionary process. There's this light bulb that pops up where they realise how interconnected and interdependent we all are."
"We're not going to have peace on Earth until we recognise the basic fact of the interrelated structure of all reality," Garan added.
Wise words.
Topics: Environment, Space, NASA
James Moorhouse