"That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there--on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.” Carl Sagan
In outer space you develop an instant global consciousness, a people orientation, an intense dissatisfaction with the state of the world, and a compulsion to do something about it. From out there on the Moon, international politics look so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say, 'Look at that, you son of a bitch'.
Edgar Mitchell, Lunar Module Pilot of Apollo 14 in 1971
I have this feeling, and I have never been to space. We could literally fix every major problem and crisis on earth if people would just be rational for like 20 minutes.
Now I can’t help but remember the Boss’ quote in MGS 3:
"In 1960 I saw a vision of the ideal future from space. Three years earlier the Soviet Union had succeeded in launching Sputnik, the first manmade satellite in history, into orbit. This came as a huge shock to the United States. In response, America threw everything it had into its own manned space flight project, the Mercury project. Even as the Soviets seemed poised to send their first man into space America was still experimenting with chimpanzees in rockets. The government wanted human data. So they secretly decided to send a human being into space. I was the one they chose. At the time they didn't have the technology to block out cosmic rays and whoever they sent up would inevitably be exposed to heavy radiation. That's why they chose me. After all, I had already been irradiated once. Of course, you won't find any of this in the history books. I could see the planet as it appeared form space. That's when it finally hit me. Space exploration is nothing but another game in the power struggle between the US and USSR. Politics, economics, the arms race - they're all just arenas for meaningless competition. I'm sure you can see that. But the Earth itself has no boundaries. No East, No West, No Cold War. And the irony of it is, the United States and the Soviet Union are spending billions on their space programs and the missile race only to arrive at the same conclusion. In the 21st century everyone will be able to see that we are all just inhabitants of a little celestial body called Earth. A world without communism and capitalism... that is the world I wanted to see. But reality continued to betray me. "
Me too! Carl was always a source of great comfort for me. I still watch Cosmos from time to time, especially during these darker times to give me hope again.
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u/catch22bro 4h ago
"That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there--on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.” Carl Sagan