Big tasks for a little planet

If we stand back too far as war changes the world, we won't see the work at hand

Earth’s biggest challenges seem miniscule from afar, but they’re our essential tasks here. (Photo from The New York Public Library on Unsplash)

So profound is the human reaction to space flight, apparently, that a term has been coined to characterize what has been described by many of the 600-plus humans who have gone beyond earth’s boundaries and looked down upon the planet. It’s called “the overview effect.” People think differently about the earth and its challenges, we’re told, after they’ve slipped its gravitational pull and reflected on it from beyond.¹

Michael Collins, the command module pilot for the Apollo 11 mission, tried to describe the overview effect years after his return from the moon mission in 1969. “The thing that really surprised me was that it [Earth] projected an air of fragility,” he said. “And why, I don’t know. I don’t know to this day. I had a feeling it’s tiny, it’s shiny, it’s beautiful, it’s home, and it’s fragile.” His crewmate Neil Armstrong, the first man …