Overview Effect

Remembering 'Earthrise' - December 1968

Earthrise memories on the 45th anniversary - Earth-home, the historic view of Earth from Apollo

"The earth from here [circling the moon] is a grand oasis in the big vastness of space." — Jim Lovell, live Apollo 8 - 1968

"If somebody had said before the flight, 'Are you going to get carried away looking at the earth from the moon?' I would have said, 'No, no way.' But yet when I first looked back at the earth, standing on the moon, I cried." — Alan Shepard, Astronaut

"As you pass from sunlight into darkness and back again every hour and a half, you become startlingly aware how artificial are thousands of boundaries we've created to separate and define. And for the first time in your life you feel in your gut the precious unity of the Earth and all the living things it supports." — Russell Schweikart, Apollo 9

"As we got further and further away, it [the Earth] diminished 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..." — James Irwin, Apollo 15

The Overview Effect

What a View!

Overview refers to the experience of seeing firsthand the reality of the Earth in space, which is immediately understood to be a tiny, fragile ball of life, hanging in the void, shielded and nourished by a paper-thin atmosphere. From space, the astronauts tell us, national boundaries vanish, the conflicts that divide us become less important and the need to create a planetary society with the united will to protect our "pale blue dot."

"One connected system #BlueDot"

Visit the Overview Institute

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Douglas Trumbull's VFX vision in Silent Running and beyond continues on in our memory banks [1] [2] [3] [4]