Have you ever wondered what goes through an astronaut’s mind as they look down on our beautiful blue planet? For Ron Garan, a former NASA astronaut now aged 62, the view from space led to a profound and shocking revelation. In his own words, Garan realized that we Earthlings have been ‘living a lie’ all along.
No, it’s not about flat Earth theories. It’s about something much deeper that challenges how we live our lives.
Picture yourself in Garan’s place, floating in a spacesuit with an endless view of Earth. This experience is often described as the ‘overview effect,’ a powerful mental shift in how one perceives the world. Many astronauts describe this as a moment filled with awe and self-transcendence, sparking emotions that are difficult to put into words.
During his 178 days in space, Garan traveled over 71 million miles and completed 2,842 orbits in his career with NASA. His time on the International Space Station (ISS) offered him a unique perspective on how we live here on Earth.
In an insightful conversation with Big Think, this New Yorker shared his revelation that many of the things we worry about are not what should truly matter. Instead, the focus should shift to issues like global warming, deforestation, and loss of biodiversity.
Recalling his time at the ISS, Garan said, “When I looked out of the window, I witnessed the dazzling flashes of lightning storms, and the breathtaking auroras so vivid that it felt as though we could touch them. The most striking was how extremely thin our planet’s atmosphere appeared. It dawned on me then how this fragile layer is what sustains all life on Earth.”
He continued, “I saw a thriving biosphere from up there, but I couldn’t see the economy that seems to drive human life. Our man-made systems, unfortunately, treat our planet’s life-support mechanisms as mere components of a global economic machine. From space, it becomes clear that we’re living under a false premise.”
Garan believes the solution is to reorder our priorities from focusing on the economy first to placing the planet and society at the forefront. He stated, “We have to switch from thinking in terms of economy, society, planet to planet, society, economy. That’s when we’ll advance as a species. A light bulb of realization goes on, highlighting our remarkable interconnectedness and interdependence.”
He profoundly added, “Achieving peace on Earth is fundamentally linked to acknowledging our intertwined existence.”
Ron Garan’s views echo those of other astronauts. Michael Collins, who flew on Apollo 11, remarked on Earth’s frailty and smallness. Edgar Mitchell from Apollo 14 shared how the sight sparked a profound ‘explosion of awareness’ within him.
Perhaps Elon Musk’s SpaceX is what we need next – a ride for all to experience this transformative view firsthand.
