William Shatner cried upon returning from space. The “overview effect” explains why
The “overview effect”, experienced by astronauts when they view the Earth from outer space, irrevocably changes your perspective as a human.
In all of human history, only a few thousand people have ever reached the final frontier: breaking the gravitational bonds of Earth and experiencing the wonders of being present in space. On October 13, 2021, William Shatner — best known as Star Trek’s Captain Kirk — became the oldest person, at age 90, ever to experience it. Almost immediately, he recounted a feeling that other astronauts have reported: a cognitive shift in awareness that’s known as the overview effect.
Reported by a large number of astronauts and cosmonauts, from the first person in space (Yuri Gagarin) right up through the most recent (Shatner), the sense of compassion and fragility for all of humanity, and perhaps even all life on Earth, is something that you have to experience for yourself to truly understand. While most of us will only get a sense of that feeling of going to space secondhand, through pictures and videos, it cannot reproduce the lived experience of those who’ve been there. At this crucial moment in human civilization, the message brought back from those who’ve…
