The pale blue dot

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Weary, exhausted and frustrated with all the news about the war that US President Donald Trump is waging in Iran, I welcomed the news about the Artemis II lunar flyby.

They delivered stunning new images of our planet taken from space evoking expressions of awe, humility and cosmic connection from many.

Victor Glover, the pilot of the mission’s capsule, reflected on the planet’s unity as they prepared to pass the far side of the moon: “from up here you look like one thing; Homo sapiens is all of us.”

Reid Wiseman, the commander of the mission described the view as “the most spectacular moment that paused all four of us in our tracks.”

The Artemis II crew sent back images showing the Earth’s brilliant blue color, white clouds and night time photos of twinkling city lights.  A photo taken from the far side of the Moon showed an Earth setting behind the cratered lunar landscape.

The Earth was once described by astronomer Carl Sagan as a pale blue dot in a photograph taken in 1990 by the Voyager 1 spacecraft at Sagan’s request, as Voyager 1 was leaving the solar system — approximately 3.7 billion miles away.

Sagan convinced NASA to turn its camera back toward Earth for one last look. The image showed the Earth as a tiny speck, less than a single pixel in size. Sagan called it a humbling reminder of our place in the universe. “That ‘mote of dust,’ is the only home we have ever known.”

In 1961, Alan Shepard, the first American in space, described the view during his suborbital flight as a “beautiful sight.” Years later, while standing on the Moon during Apollo 14, he simply remarked, “When I first looked back at the Earth, standing on the Moon, I cried.”

Even just looking at the pictures, one gets this feeling of awe; that the one true God who created the universe is a God of order and beauty. And we dishonor him by destroying the environment he created and endangering it with our never-ending wars.

It is wonderful that today’s generations, Serge Schmemann of the New York Times wrote, can experience the humbling thrill of seeing Earth as “a grand oasis in the big vastness of space,” as the Apollo 8 astronaut and commander of Apollo 13 Jim Lovell put it.

Schmemann also thinks all these “make for a feeling of wonder and exultation at a time we badly need it.”

Space philosopher and author Frank White, in a NASA podcast, talked about interviews he had with several past astronauts:

“You can imagine an astronaut from NASA… and seeing the Earth from a distance, having that realization of why are we fighting each other? Why are we in conflict? Why are we having wars? It is a beautiful planet, it’s alive, it’s always changing. And yet, there’s so much strife…”

The NYT reports that the Artemis II astronauts had a collegial chat on their way home with colleagues orbiting Earth on the International Space Station… A Russian Soyuz spacecraft recently arrived at the ISS, bringing an American astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts, for a current total of 10 people onboard. And they all got along fine.

Frank White called the feeling astronauts got from up there as the “overview effect.” He observed in that NASA podcast that “what the astronauts were telling me was, we need to think of ourselves as part of this organic system. And that we are really all in this together.

“Our fate is bound up with people that we may think are different from us. We may have different religions; we may have different politics. But ultimately, we are connected. Totally connected. And not only with people, but with life… And out of that, also, is the realization our differences don’t matter that much…”

I think it is a good idea for Trump, Putin, Xi Jinping and Netanyahu to board a space capsule even for a brief ride high up there where they can see the Earth in its proper context with the rest of the universe. It may just deflate their bloated egos and reduce their levels of testosterone to keep them from waging wars.

Back to Earth, The Economist observed that “The rapture that greeted Apollo 8’s first journey to the Moon, and later the first landing, was soon eclipsed by Vietnam, oil crises, Watergate and more.”

And today’s Artemis II mission is being overshadowed by the war in Iran, the stranded oil tankers in Hormuz and the continuing war in Ukraine.

Already, there are new revelations suggesting that China is pursuing far more than symbolic missions on the Moon. Knowing China, they seem to be headed for a long-term strategic foothold that could make space for a future battleground for competing world powers.

There are reports that the China National Space Administration is working on advanced lunar infrastructure, potential research stations and technologies designed to support long-term human and robotic presence.

A primary driver for lunar settlements is the extraction of rare minerals. Some analysts fear this could mirror territorial disputes on Earth, where nations compete for control over strategic “terrain” and resources.

While the Outer Space Treaty of 1967 strictly prohibits establishing military bases or testing weapons on the moon, there are strong indicators suggesting that earthly conflicts could be exported there.

A highly advanced civilization watching us from outer space must think we are a bunch of idiots. Why else are we focused on developing ultimate weapons of mass destruction that will blow up our beautiful pale blue dot of a planet and annihilate all of us in the process?

Sending our world leaders for a spin in outer space should let them feel what astronauts and cosmonauts have felt… a sense of humility and a resolve to protect this beautiful blue planet that is our only home. We really are all in it together on Spaceship Earth.

Boo Chanco’s email address is [email protected]. Follow him on X @boochanco