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Astronaut shares the profound 'big lie' he realized after seeing the Earth from space

This change in perspective could change humanity.

via Rubén Moreno Montolíu/Flickr

Our home, from space.

Sixty-one years ago, Yuri Gagarin became the first human to make it into space and probably the first to experience what scientists now call the "overview effect." This change occurs when people see the world from far above and notice that it’s a place where “borders are invisible, where racial, religious and economic strife are nowhere to be seen.”

The overview effect makes man’s squabbles with one another seem incredibly petty and presents the planet as it truly is, one interconnected organism.

In a compelling interview with Big Think, astronaut, author and humanitarian Ron Garan explains how if more of us developed this planetary perspective we could fix much of what ails humanity and the planet.

Garan has spent 178 days in space and traveled more than 71 million miles in 2,842 orbits. From high above, he realized that the planet is a lot more fragile than he thought.

“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 realization that that paper-thin layer keeps every living thing on our planet alive,” Garan said in the video.

“I saw an iridescent biosphere teeming with life,” he continues. “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.”

It was at that moment he realized that humanity needs to reevaluate its priorities.

“We need to move from thinking economy, society, planet to planet, society, economy. That's when we're going to continue our evolutionary process,” he added.

Garan says that we are paying a very “high price” as a civilization for our inability to develop a more planetary perspective and that it’s a big reason why we’re failing to solve many of our problems. Even though our economic activity may improve quality of life on one end, it’s also disasterous for the planet that sustains our lives.

It’s like cutting off our nose to spite our face.

Actor William Shatner had a similar experience to Garan's when he traveled into space.

"It was among the strongest feelings of grief I have ever encountered," Shatner wrote. "The contrast between the vicious coldness of space and the warm nurturing of Earth below filled me with overwhelming sadness. Every day, we are confronted with the knowledge of further destruction of Earth at our hands: the extinction of animal species, of flora and fauna … things that took five billion years to evolve, and suddenly we will never see them again because of the interference of mankind."

man in white and black suit standing on white and blue floorPhoto by Yucel Moran on Unsplash

“We're not going to have peace on Earth until we recognize the basic fact of the interrelated structure of all reality,” Garan said.

However dire the situation looks from the surface of Earth, the astronaut has hope that we can collectively evolve in consciousness and wake up and embrace a larger reality. “And when we can evolve beyond a two-dimensional us versus them mindset, and embrace the true multi-dimensional reality of the universe that we live in, that's when we're going to no longer be floating in darkness … and it's a future that we would all want to be a part of. That's our true calling.”


This article originally appeared three years ago.

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Science

Science communicator baffles millions with this optical illusion of the Earth

Our first impressions aren’t always right.

via JayMantri/Pexels

A photo of Earth taken from space

A popular science communicator named Massimo shared an optical illusion on Twitter on April 4, and the baffling image earned over 4.4 million views. At first, the photograph looks like the Earth, set against a starry night sky.

It’s reminiscent of the Universal Pictures logo or a shot that one would see in a “Star Wars” film right before two ships go speeding by while blasting each other with laser fire. However, the Earth in the photo is not a planet, and the stars in the night sky aren’t stars at all.

“This photo is (another) example of how optical illusions mess with your mind,” Massimo captioned the photo. “First you see a picture of the Earth from space and then…”

"Then what?" Meningloos tweeted

"A cityscape," Christopher Kyle Fletcher responded.

If you are reading this on a smartphone and you rotate it, you'll notice that what looked like stars is a skyline with a few tall buildings. What appeared to be the Earth is actually clouds sometime around sunset or sunrise.

Meg0365 corrected the photo, and it all makes sense.

The tweet is a compelling example of how our minds can play tricks on us and that our first impression of something may be incorrect.

“This highlights the two different processing speeds of the brain, a 'quick' answer is thrown out as soon as possible, a slower but more accurate answer is presented once the brain has performed more comparisons and details. Some go through life only accepting the quick responses,” Colin Angus wrote.


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Joy

'Moon bloopers' from NASA is the space footage we didn't know we needed

Apparently, walking on the moon is harder than it looks.

"... Apollo mission" by x-ray delta one is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

Astronauts falling on the moon is some stellar entertainment.

When Neil Armstrong became the first human to set foot on the moon on July 20, 1969, the story of life on Earth was dramatically and forever changed. No longer were we bound to the land on our own planet. We had set foot on another orb in space, broken a new frontier, literally going where no man had gone before.

The words, "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind," spoke to the technological advances that had catapulted the human race from the first sustained, powered human flight to landing a man on the moon in less than 70 years. It was truly an incredible feat.

That "one small step," that people around the world watched on their television sets was seriously momentous. But the steps the world didn't see were genuinely hilarious.

NASA has footage of astronauts trying to walk around on the moon's low gravity, zero atmosphere surface, and apparently, it's a lot harder than it looks. The graceful bouncing of astronauts we've seen in moon landing films belies how easy it was to fall and trip. And once you fall down in a huge space suit in gravity conditions your body isn't used to, it's not so easy to get back up again.

Universal Curiosity shared a montage of "moon bloopers," if you will, sped up 2x for optimal comedic effect. Watch these brilliant space scientists stumble Three Stooges-style as they make their way around the moon:

Eight of the 12 astronauts who have walked on the moon shared recollections of their time on the moon with Forbes in 2019. Nearly across the board, they talked about having a keen understanding of the historic nature of their moon missions, but also being totally focused on the checklists of what they needed to do while they were there. Each Apollo moon mission was limited by time, so there wasn't a lot of opportunity to just goof around.

Some astronaut falls were accidental, including one that nearly cost astronaut Charlie Duke his life during the Apollo 16 mission. While jumping up and down on the moon to see how high he could go—not part of the mission—Duke lost his balance and fell backward onto his fiberglass shell backpack. Thankfully, it didn't crack, but it was a deadly possibility that would have left him without life support and victim to the vacuum of space.

Other falls were planned experiments to see how the conditions on the moon affected human locomotion, providing valuable information for scientists. Still hilarious to watch, though.

This Dark5 documentary segment shares more details about why walking on the moon is such a challenge and the actually quite serious stories behind some of these falls:

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Eight-year-old shares an adorable chat with an astronaut in outer space using her ham radio

They made contact.

Photo by History in HD on Unsplash

Houston, no problems. Just chillin'.

Matt Payne, of Kent, England, and his 8-year-old daughter Isabella Payne share two distinct passions—outer space and amateur radio.

On Aug. 8, the daddy-daughter duo got to combine the two interests. The result was, dare I say, out of this world.


girl calls nasa, ham radio issIsabella, seen in space.Twitter

Using Matt’s ham radio, under the station name M0LMK, Isabella was able to place a call to another amateur radio station … one that just so happened to be onboard the International Space Station (ISS). Talk about a long-distance call.

On the other end of the line was astronaut Kjell Lindgren, commander of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-4, who was more than happy to chat.

Matt posted a short audio clip of their sweet exchange on Twitter, where Isabella nails sounding out call signs before introducing herself.

"November, Alpha, One, Sierra, Sierra. Mike, Zero, Lima, Mike, Kilo … My name's Isabella, I'm 8 years old," the precocious young girl says confidently to Lindgren.

The astronaut, clearly charmed, answers back “Isabella, it's so great to chat with you, thank you for getting on the radio and saying hello," before signing off.

Matt later thanked Commander Lindgren, saying that “you have changed her world.”

He revealed that when Isabella was just 2 years old, she watched students speak with world-renowned astronaut Tim Peake. Since then she had wanted to have her own conversation with a space explorer.

“Today, she got her chance,” Matt wrote.

Lindgren replied saying that he’s had a “lot of fun” talking with other ham radios worldwide, but that his interaction with Isabella “may be my favorite contact so far.”

In an interview with NPR, Matt described how reaching Lindgren had been a result of meticulous timing with a dash of luck.

“First off, you need an astronaut that is in their own time choosing to use that equipment to talk to us operators down here on Earth. As well as that, you need to have the space station within a visual line of sight,” he explained.

Luckily, the planets aligned accordingly.

In the same interview, Isabella shared that her dream is to become a communications specialist at the Mission Control Center, mostly so she can “say stuff like - hello, is everything still floating around? And are you enjoying your food?” Clearly, she’s a natural and well on her way.

The ISS seems to be regularly making random contacts with hams all over the world, so if you’ve ever toyed with the idea of reaching out to space yourself, now’s your chance. Matt hopes that NASA schedules special times for the ISS to have similar conversations with other children, “since it brings so much joy and inspiration.”

There are so many amazing hobbies out there, but amateur radio takes the possibilities, as another beloved space traveler would say, ”to infinity and beyond.”

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