A vacation is the best way to appreciate your home.
This seemed to be William Shatner's sentiment after returning from a short space trip on Wednesday. The actor spoke out after landing to describe the most profound experience he could imagine.
His focus was not on going to places that few others have been before. He was most moved by the sight of Earth as a blanket, a comforter of blue, that surrounds us far away. According to Shatner space was black ugliness and a stark contrast to the beauty of our planet. When you look down at Earth, there's the blue and the black. There is comfort and death. I don't know.
Its remarkable. Captain Kirk ends up reflecting back on his journey when he finally lifts off.
This is perhaps more impressive considering Shatner's driving force behind Shatners flight, the man to whom Shatner said: I hope that I never recover from it is Jeff Bezos founder of Amazon and owner Blue Origin. Bezos nodded while Shatner rhapsodized. But his approach to the future was quite different.
Bezos' vision is to colonize space with a trillion people, far from our planet. He envisions large structures that can hold at least a million people each. According to a presentation in 2019, his belief is that the Earth's resources are finite and that space is the only viable option if the world economy continues to grow and the population keeps growing. Although he isn't writing off the planet, his presentation titled Going To Space to Benefit Earth was not about that. His focus seems to be on humanity's departure.
Fair enough, Bezos also pledged $10bn for fighting climate change (even though he founded a company with a carbon footprint that was comparable to Norway's in 2018. Perhaps Shatner's words can be used to remind us that the Earth is all we have and that we must fight for it. Bezos agreed with his passenger. We hope that he believes this: With a little more help from people with unlimited resources, we may even be able wring some extra years out the place. Let's celebrate what we have below this sheet, that blanket, this comforter in blue.
