As most people know, actor William Shatner rode a rocket not long ago, thanks to Jeff Bezos. Today’s gazillionaires can have their own spacecraft. When I was a kid, only Bond villains did. Anyway, NPR’s piece on his new memoir, Boldly Go, focuses on his surprise that the overwhelming emotional reaction he had to being up there turned out to be grief; he was weeping, because he was walloped with an instant awareness of the beautiful isolated fragility of the Earth, and as soon as that linked up with what he already knew about what we humans were and are doing to the planet and to each other, he was overwhelmed by that. The piece goes on to cite the work of Frank White, who first publicized the term “overview effect” in a 1987 book. White has interviewed “more than 40 astronauts” on the subject, and found that Shatner’s reaction is typical. Astronauts don’t just intellectually know about the existential threats that all of us who don’t live under rocks know about; they know it experientially, just from looking down at the Earth from the blackness outside it. As Shatner put it, the Earth was life, shining and colorful, and space was death. Stark and clear.
Captain Kirk cries in space
Captain Kirk cries in space
Captain Kirk cries in space
As most people know, actor William Shatner rode a rocket not long ago, thanks to Jeff Bezos. Today’s gazillionaires can have their own spacecraft. When I was a kid, only Bond villains did. Anyway, NPR’s piece on his new memoir, Boldly Go, focuses on his surprise that the overwhelming emotional reaction he had to being up there turned out to be grief; he was weeping, because he was walloped with an instant awareness of the beautiful isolated fragility of the Earth, and as soon as that linked up with what he already knew about what we humans were and are doing to the planet and to each other, he was overwhelmed by that. The piece goes on to cite the work of Frank White, who first publicized the term “overview effect” in a 1987 book. White has interviewed “more than 40 astronauts” on the subject, and found that Shatner’s reaction is typical. Astronauts don’t just intellectually know about the existential threats that all of us who don’t live under rocks know about; they know it experientially, just from looking down at the Earth from the blackness outside it. As Shatner put it, the Earth was life, shining and colorful, and space was death. Stark and clear.