Back on February 7th 1971 (Earth time), Ed Mitchell was speeding much faster than a rifle bullet, on track between the Earth and Moon. That’s when the strangest thing happened… Mitchell had piloted Apollo 14’s Lunar Module down to the Fra Mauro region of the Moon, become the sixth human to do science in the dust, and gotten himself and Cdr. Alan Shepard back off the regolith and onto their bus ride back home. -- Now he was bored. “We were just systems engineers on a perfectly functioning spacecraft.” So he looked out the window. The Command Module was pointing “up” – which is to say perpendicular to the plane of the Solar System – and spinning slowly, about once every two minutes. “Barbecue Mode”, it’s called; to evenly heat the vehicle. Ed was floating, watching the Earth, Moon, Sun and starfield pan by.
And then, without warning: an overwhelming feeing of bliss, timelessness, connected-ness… He suddenly and deeply felt the understanding of his constituent atoms as having been born in the fires of ancient supernovas. He saw Earth and it’s people and all it’s other species and systems as a unified integrated synergistic whole. He felt good; ecstatic actually… He was not the first – nor the last – to have this specific epiphany. -- Rusty Schweikart had felt it back on March 6th 1969 during a spacewalk outside his Apollo 9 vehicle: “When you go around the Earth in an hour and a half, you begin to recognize that your identity is with that whole thing. That makes a change…it comes through to you so powerfully that you’re the sensing element for Man.”
20 years ago, author Frank White collected, sifted, polished and curated the observations of 30 astronauts and cosmonauts. But these weren’t science observations or notes about the spacecraft hardware. They were reports of this specific, marked psychological shift – common to all these space travelers – immediately and profoundly broadening these hard-boiled guys’ perspectives. -- This morning, in a hotel across the street from the Pentagon in Washington, DC, Frank White addressed proponents of proselytizing this Overview Effect. Cognitive scientist David Beaver had called us here. A core group of about 40 authors, astronauts, special; effects designers, ex-magicians, musicians, scientists, technologists, producers, journalists, capitalists, space-tourist adventurers, humanists, assorted geeks, hippie-survivors (and, yes, this reporter) quickly decided upon a loose strategy of collaboration and mutual support. Intended mission: maximize opportunities for Earth-dwellers to have individual Overview experiences. Strategy: use art, science, mass media, music, environmental awareness, personal networking and, oh yeah: the Web to spread the opportunity for non-space travelers to understand and possibly experience the Effect. ... more »