Being an astronaut has got to be the biggest flex in life. A human being fulfilled one of the most common childhood dreams and achieved something deemed impossible less than 70 years ago. It's quite a kerfuffle to wrap our heads around.
Yet some people really do it, and each day we hear about new scientific developments and achievements. Nowadays, we can even catch up with NASA through Twitch. If that's not the modern world, then I don't know what is. But we must also remember that astronauts see only a side of our planet and our solar system that very few people can experience. And that can lead to realizations no one could have expected or even related to, and astronaut Ron Garan has a few words on the subject after his own experience in outer space.
Everyone dreams of being an astronaut, but very few actually manage to do it, and Ron Garan is one of them
The mission that led to his realization that "we're all living a lie" was an expedition that occurred in 2011, where he spent 178 days at the International Space Station
Ron Garan went on Expeditions 27/28, which ran sequentially from March to September 2011. The expeditions focused on advancing microgravity research across astrophysics, biology, and human physiology — at least according to NASA's own explanations. Garan joined the team as a flight engineer, responsible for station maintenance, performing spacewalks, and conducting scientific experiments.
After such a life-changing experience, making astronauts grasp the sheer scale of humanity and its problems, Garan came to an incredibly complex realization that completely shifted his perspective on Earth. He explained to Big Think that he "saw the paparazzi-like flashes of lightning storms," the "dancing curtains of auroras that seemed so close it was as if we could reach out and touch them," and ultimately realized the "unbelievable thinness of our planet's atmosphere."
In total, Garan orbited Earth 2,842 times and traveled more than 71 million miles in outer space
Despite this phenomenal adventure, the astronaut realized how futile humanity can be in prioritizing wealth and economy versus our planet's biosphere
What led Garan to this epiphany was realizing just how fragile humanity and our lives are. "In that moment, I was hit with the sobering realization that that paper-thin layer keeps every living thing on our planet alive," he said, referring to Earth's atmosphere, which many astronauts and scientists have explained appears, from outer space, as an incredibly thin, glowing blue band hugging the curve of the Earth. It is what shields our planet from radiation, the solar wind, and the absolute vacuum of space.
This fragility of humanity as we know it made the astronaut realize that humans have been using Earth for its resources rather than caring for it as the "iridescent biosphere teeming with life," that it is. Moreover, the astronaut expanded on this, saying, "Our human-made systems treat everything, including the very life-support systems of our planet, as the wholly owned subsidiary of the global economy, it's obvious from the vantage point of space that we're living a lie."
Ultimately, the astronaut realized our Earth is held and alive by a "paper-thin" layer that humans are failing to protect in lieu of their beliefs regarding economic growth and geopolitical borders
So, what did he actually mean by this? Well, very simply put, Garan believes our mindsets have been indoctrinated into misranking our priorities. Namely, we've been putting economic systems, financial markets, and even geopolitical borders at the forefront of society. Instead, the engineer says humans have started to see environmental problems as less important than these man-made concepts. We act as if Earth's resources are endless, and as if our economy being independent of Earth's ecosystem.
It's a complex train of thought, but one that makes absolute sense once you take into consideration that this man completely lived a different reality from everyone else. He saw the world for what it is — limited. Limited resources. Small on the grand scale of things. And he's hardly the only one to have done it. In fact, it's an overwhelmingly common experience for space travelers. Author Frank White even coined this type of epiphany as "the Overview Effect."
This overview effect actually refers to the psychological transformation that some astronauts experience after seeing Earth from orbit, or even from the Moon. Artificial geopolitical boundaries disappear, which creates a feeling of frustration among astronauts over man-made conflicts, despite the fact that we're all living on a single planet in the same point in time and space. But they also experience a deep sense of interconnectedness.
Garan said it himself: "The other thing I felt, and I can't really explain, is that being completely detached from Earth also made me feel deeply connected with everyone on the planet. It was this overwhelming kinship," he said. Many other astronauts have also shared having similar feelings, like Edgar Mitchell, who mentioned his dissatisfaction with the state of the world and how international politics seem petty from the Moon, or even Nicole Stott, who shifted her NASA career toward environmental art and activism instead.
Ultimately, readers of Garan's testimony completely understood what he meant, despite not living through the same experience themselves. So what do you think of Garan's epiphany? Do you believe it's something only astronauts and deep-sea researchers can truly realize after seeing how there's only one Earth? Let us know!
Here's what readers had to say regarding Garan's point of view
