Space Perspective Quotes

National boundaries are not evident when we view the Earth from space. Fanatical ethnic or religious or national chauvinisms are a little difficult to maintain when we see our planet as a fragile blue crescent fading to become an inconspicuous point of light against the bastion and citadel of the stars.

Once you've been in space, you appreciate how small and fragile the Earth is.

Imagery is powerful. Imagery is provocative - satellite imagery much more so because it is from space, and it allows us to get this perspective that we don't have to have otherwise.

The view of earth is absolutely spectacular, and the feeling of looking back and seeing your planet as a planet is just an amazing feeling. It's a totally different perspective, and it makes you appreciate, actually, how fragile our existence is.

If there was an observer on Mars, they would probably be amazed that we have survived this long.

You think America is the biggest place on Earth, but it's not. [The view from Mir] put everything in perspective.

You develop an instant global consciousness, a people orientation, an intense dissatisfaction with the state of the world, and a compulsion to do something about it. From out there on the moon, international politics looks so petty.

There is a distinct layer between the Earth and the universe, which is extremely black. Slowly, the entire universe starts to look 3D, like you can fly through it rather than this sphere of blackness overhead. And when you're above the atmosphere, there isn't water vapour in the air to make things foggy.

How can you look at the galaxy and not feel insignificant?

I realized up there that our planet is not infinite. It's fragile. That may not be obvious to a lot of folks, and it's tough that people are fighting each other here on Earth instead of trying to get together and live on this planet. We look pretty vulnerable in the darkness of space.

I feel particularly close to them, because I am now out in the universe. I'm in a position to see nature from another point of view, to be outside the earth and see the big picture.

It's tiny out there...it's inconsequential. It's ironic that we had come to study the Moon and it was really discovering the Earth.

But when I wasn't working, I was usually at a window looking down at Earth.

The Earth is a beautiful planet. The space station is a great vantage point to observe it and share our planet in pictures. It makes you more of an environmentalist.

The Earth reminded us of a Christmas tree ornament hanging in the blackness of space. As we got farther and farther away it diminished in size. Finally it shrank to the size of a marble, the most beautiful marble you can imagine.

From the rocket we can see the huge sphere of the planet in one or another phase of the Moon. We can see how the sphere rotates, and how within a few hours it shows all its sides successively ... and we shall observe various points on the surface of the Earth for several minutes and from different sides very closely. This picture is so majestic, attractive and infinitely varied that I wish with all my soul that you and I could see it.

You get this overview effect where you realize how small we are and how fragile our planet is and how we're really all in it together. You don't see borders from space, you don't see diversity and differences in people on Earth.

I call it "the big picture effect." Getting to see earth as a small planet and to see it in that perspective, seeing it in the heavens as a planet as opposed to being down here among it, most of the people, in fact, I guess all of the people who have had that experience, shift their thinking.

It was not until we saw the picture of the earth, from the moon, that we realized how small and how helpless this planet is - something that we must hold in our arms and care for.

As we got further and further away, it [the Earth] dimished in size. Finally it shrank to the size of a marble, the most beautiful you can imagine. That beautiful, warm, living object looked so fragile, so delicate, that if you touched it with a finger it would crumble and fall apart. Seeing this has to change a man.

I think that witnessing ecological problems visible from space is one of the new and essential roles of astronauts.

For the first time, we saw our world, not as a solid, immovable, kind of indestructible place, but as a very small, fragile-looking world just hanging against the blackness of space.

If you go to space, you'll look down and see no national boundaries. You'll never see the gods people are killing each other over, but they're incredibly real.

When I look at the clouds over the Earth, and I know how high clouds are, I get a sense we are really, really far above those clouds. I wouldn't call it scary, but I am aware I am in space.

When I saw the Earth from above, personally, as a spacecraft operator, it certainly reinforced and drove home the fact that there's one place where we can live right now. The seven billion of us are sharing a wonderful planet, and it's an absolute privilege to see it from above.