Why every world leader should visit space
Only by viewing the Earth from a distance can political leaders truly call themselves qualified to lead upon it.
I have this theory — one I’ve had for many years. I firmly believe anyone wishing to become a political leader should be sent to space before they take office to view the Earth from space.
I’m not the first person to have had such thoughts, of course. Take these words from Apollo 14 astronaut Edgar Mitchell, which he gave to People magazine in 1974:
“From out there on the Moon, international politics look so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say, ‘Look at that, you son of a bitch’.”
How about going one further, and organising for leaders from entirely different parts of the world to go through the experience together.
When you consider how profound the effect of space travel is on those that have experienced it, it makes you wonder why we haven’t tried harder to get people there. I’m as certain as the day is long that had the majority of humans been afforded such an opportunity, life on our little blue globe would be a whole lot better than it is today.
But instead of spending money to facilitate such an endeavour, we’ve instead spent trillions upon trillions upon trillions creating things that only serve to destroy not only ourselves, but also the only home we’ve got.
Spending money on sending anyone to space has often been labelled frivolous. With no Cold War to fight, ‘what’s the point’, many argued. One look at some of the work done on the International Space Station (ISS) to benefit life on Earth should soon shut down any doubters.
Here are just a few notable examples:
- Water purification systems to provide purified drinking water for high-risk areas and disaster recovery. Science developed on the ISS has even figured out how to turn urine into drinkable water. It should be noted that the world generally is running out of H2O, and without it, we can’t survive.
- Making the benefits of medical ultrasound technology more accessible for remote areas of the world.
- Improvements in laser eye surgery.
- Development of robotic arms capable of operating on previously inoperable and deadly tumours.
- Research into the prevention of bone loss and osteoporosis.
- Improved vaccinations against dangerous and sometimes fatal diseases.
- Breast cancer detection and treatment technologies.
- Aiding developing countries affected by natural disasters. You can watch the video to see how important this is.)
And the list goes on.
Still, why spend money on valuable research in space when there are guns, rockets, tanks, planes and other big boys toys to buy?
It’s astonishing to think what could be accomplished if we made funds available to add to the amount of people doing this type of off-planet research. After all, people from some of the world’s sworn political enemies — Russia and the United States, for example — are able to come together on the ISS and work in harmony to find ways to make the world a better place.
Do you see where I’m going with this now?
It’s a fair assumption that it is a minority of people that drives division in the world, largely through politics. Yet the influence of their ‘public service’, if you want to call it that, has been so catastrophic for so long, why are we not looking for solutions?
Of course not every person with leadership ambitions will have the fitness or fibre to make it out there — I can’t quite imagine Bernie Sanders suiting up for launch at his age. But at the very least, a period of isolation looking back at Earth from a distance, either in space itself or a simulated version of it, should be a mandatory requirement. It would promote the kind of thought too many of our politicians and leaders are too short-sighted to entertain.
The proof of how huge an impact this might have on global relations is available for all to see in the words of those that have returned to Earth having seen it from afar. After all, when you step back from seemingly complex objects, they often make much more sense than they ever did before.
I hope you enjoyed this read, and if you like my leaders in space idea, click the recommend button down below and help spread the word with your own networks. It’s safe to say we all want a better world to live in — well, most of us.
