Astronaut. Ron Garan experienced the ‘overview effect’ when looking down at Earth from space.
A former NASA astronaut has shared a deeply eye-opening moment he experienced when gazing down at Earth from space.
Ron Garan, an ex-NASA astronaut and author, spent an impressive 178 days in space. It was during a moment when he was looking down at Earth from the International Space Station that he encountered what is known as the ‘Overview Effect’.
The ‘Overview Effect’ often occurs when astronauts look down at Earth from space for the first time.
NASA describes it as an experience that “shifts the way astronauts view and think about our planet and life itself.”
During his time in space, Garan traveled “more than 71 million miles in 2,842 orbits of our planet,” amounting to a total of 178 days.
Despite this extensive journey, it was the sight of Earth from space that made “certain things become undeniably clear.”
In an interview with Big Think, Garan said: “We keep trying to deal with issues such as global warming, deforestation, biodiversity loss as stand alone issues when in reality they’re just symptoms of the underlying root problem and the problem is, that we don’t see ourselves as planetary.”
Garan continued: “When I looked out of the window of the International Space Station, I saw the paparazzi like flashes of lightening 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.”
Ron Garan was in space for 178 daysCarla Cioffi/NASA via Getty Images
He described how, in that moment, he was struck by a “sobering realization.”
Garan realized that our planet—and every living thing on it—is sustained by a “paper thin layer.”
He noted: “I saw an iridescent biosphere teaming with life, I didn’t see an economy, but since our human-made systems treat everything including the very life-support systems of our planet as the subsidiary of the global economy, it’s obvious from the vanish point of space that we’re living a lie.”
Reflecting on this moment, Garan described it as a “light bulb that pops up” when he realized “how interconnected and interdependent we all are.”
Since his return from space, Garan has been dedicated to working towards a cleaner, safer, and more peaceful planet.
He urges others: “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 concluded: “We’re not going to have peace on Earth until we recognize the basic fact of the interrelated structure of all reality.”
