SEND THEM UP
WHAT IS THE
OVERVIEW EFFECT?
The Overview Effect is a term coined 1987 by space philosopher Frank White.
It describes a shift in awareness happens to someone when he views earth from out of space. Suddenly he realizes how small this planet with all his beautiful living is and that we as human race belong together to protect that fragile world our ours.
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The effect has been compared to parenthood. The moment you hold your new born child in your arm, you intent to protect it, feed it and make it happy. That is an intercultural feeling. Humans around the world understand it immediately without words or any further explanation.
The Overview Effect is such an archetypal feeling as well. More or less everybody who flew to space and saw our small blue planet in the vastness of the universe, developed a feeling of wanting to protect it. One world for all. No matter of the differences in form, thought and way of life.
Edgar Mitchell (Apollo 14 astronaut)
"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 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!'"