The View From The Moon

The greatest physical perspective humans have yet reached is that of standing upon the moon and looking from there into the universe. People have always searched for this kind of perspective by staring up at the stars, of course, but standing on the moon provides a setting with powerful differences. And so I’ll give you direct quotations from the handful of humans who have actually experienced this. Please read them slowly:

As Neil and I first stood on the surface of the moon looking back at Earth—a bright blue marble suspended in the blackness of space—the experience moved us in ways that we could not have anticipated. (Buzz Aldrin, Apollo 11)

I’m sure that viewing the world from the moon only enriched me spiritually and also gave me a new vantage point on life . . . Anyone who walked on the moon had such a spiritual experience, similar to it or stronger. (Gene Cernan, Apollo 17)

On the return trip home, gazing through 240,000 miles of space toward the stars and the planet from which I had come, I suddenly experienced the universe as intelligent, loving, harmonious. My view of our planet was a glimpse of divinity… We went to the moon as technicians, we returned as humanitarians. (Edgar Mitchell, Apollo 14)

Out there on another planet, I was looking back at the Earth, or I was looking back at the other stars in the universe – science and technology could no longer explain to me what I was feeling. Not just what I was seeing, it’s what I was feeling. And I kept thinking, above all religions, there has to be a creator. (Gene Cernan, Apollo 17)

Since that time I have not complained about the weather one single time. I’m glad there is weather. I have not complained about traffic; I’m glad there are people around. One of the things I did when I got home; I went down to shopping centers, and I’d just go out there, get an ice cream cone or something, and just watch the people go by. And think “boy we’re lucky to be here. Why do people complain about the Earth? We are living in the garden of Eden.” (Alan Bean, Apollo 12)

The Earth reminded us of a Christmas tree ornament hanging in the blackness of space. As we got farther and farther away it diminished in size. Finally it shrank to the size of a marble, the most beautiful marble you can imagine. That beautiful, warm, living object looked so fragile, so delicate, that if you touched it with a finger it would crumble and fall apart. Seeing this has to change a man, has to make a man appreciate the creation of God and the love of God. (James Irwin, Apollo 15)

It’s in the nature of the human being to face challenges. It’s by the nature of his deep inner soul... we’re required to do these things just as salmon swim upstream. (Neil Armstrong, Apollo 11)

The important achievement of Apollo was demonstrating that humanity is not forever chained to this planet and our visions go rather further than that and our opportunities are unlimited. (Neil Armstrong, Apollo 11)

I thought we’d go to the moon and put up a base, and stay there. We should have done that. If we had, the world would be infinitely better off than they are today. (John Young, Apollo 16)

It was to me like I was just sitting on a rocking chair on a Friday evening, looking back home; sitting on God’s front porch, looking back at the Earth; looking back home. It was really that simple, but it was an overpowering experience. (Gene Cernan, Apollo 17)

On the way home... the earth, the moon, the sun and a whole 360 degree panorama of the heavens, and that was the powerful, overwhelming experience. And suddenly I realized that the molecules of my body, the molecules of the spacecraft, the molecules of the bodies of my partners, were prototyped, were manufactured in some ancient generation of stars. And that was an overwhelming sense of oneness and connectedness. It wasn’t them and us, it was... one thing. And it was accompanied by an ecstasy. (Edgar Mitchell, Apollo 14)

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, you son of a bitch.” (Edgar Mitchell, Apollo 14)

It’s like trying to describe what you feel when you’re standing on the rim of the Grand Canyon or remembering your first love or the birth of your child. You have to be there to really know what it’s like. (Jack Schmitt, Apollo 17)

We can continue to try and clean up the gutters all over the world and spend all of our resources looking at just the dirty spots and trying to make them clean. Or we can lift our eyes up and look into the skies and move forward in an evolutionary way. (Buzz Aldrin, Apollo 11)

There’s much more that could be said about these things, but I’ll leave you with a single image. I suggest that you enlarge it and remain with it for a while: