Commander Chris Hadfield is leaving the International Space Station (ISS) today, and I am going to miss him very much. He has been using Twitter to post pictures he's taken from the station, looking down on our beautiful but fragile world, with awesome effect. From 200 miles up he watched 16 sunrises and 16 sunsets every 24 hours, and by his own admission, rushed to the windows with his camera at every given opportunity.
Plankton Blooms seen from the ISS
Most astronauts describe how seeing the earth as a whole, from space, with fresh eyes, changes your perspective. The Overview Effect as it is known was once the privilege of a very select few who had been into orbit, but Chris Hadfield has given that perspective to all of us. And then some. I haven't been so captivated by a space mission since the days of Skylab in the 70's.
“Who’d have thought that five months away from the planet would make you feel closer to it?” he mused, in a goodbye video filmed with the blue planet glowing in the windows of the ISS’s observation deck. “Not because I miss it, but because seeing the planet this way and being able to share it has allowed me to get a direct reflection back, immediately, from so many people, that it makes me feel that this experience is not individual but shared.”
all pictures by Cmdr Chris Hadfield from the ISS
In Tom Chivers' excellent piece for the Telegraph he ponders the scientific use of the ISS.
'Perhaps the primary mission of the space station shouldn’t be one of scientific discovery, but of inspiration. For decades, mankind’s push for space was military-led, secretive. The idea of the commander of a mission sending back videos of himself wringing out a wet cloth to show how water behaves in zero gravity, or explaining why you need to be careful making a sandwich in space (crumbs, you see), would have been unthinkable.
'More than a stern-faced officer-scientist or boy’s-own-adventure hero, what space exploration needs now is an advocate: someone who can remind us why we wanted to go to the universe on our doorstep in the first place.' Hadfield, with his mischievous sense of humour, (if a film is made of his life, he wants to be played by “someone with a good moustache”), approachable demeanour and palpable awe at what he sees, has been the perfect spokesman for the cosmos.'
'It is perhaps ironic, though, that he has created such excitement not with pictures of Saturn’s rings or distant nebulae – which robot space explorers such as the Cassini-Huygens probe and the Hubble telescope have sent us – but with a new perspective on our own pale blue dot. Pictures of a river in Bolivia lit up by the sunrise and glowing like a firework, or of Vesuvius, looking straight down the volcano’s caldera, have come as a reminder that our planet can compete with the wider universe for remarkable sights.'
Thank you Chris Hadfield. What a pleasure and a privilege it's been to share your amazing ride.
The Overview Effect film
The Overview Effect, first described by author Frank White in 1987, is an experience that transforms astronauts’ perspective of the planet and mankind’s place upon it. Common features of the experience are a feeling of awe for the planet, a profound understanding of the interconnection of all life, and a renewed sense of responsibility for taking care of the environment.
‘Overview’ is a short film that explores this phenomenon through interviews with five astronauts who have experienced the Overview Effect. The film also features insights from commentators and thinkers on the wider implications and importance of this understanding for society, and our relationship to the environment.
OVERVIEW from Planetary Collective on Vimeo.
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