The past couple of months I read so much about our quest in space. Finding our twin planet, searching for exoplanets, the ethics of space exploration, the overview-effect and connectedness. I learned about Comet 67P that contains the element phosphorus, a component of DNA, a crucial building block for life on Earth. Comets like 67P most likely left our most basic life-building blocks behind when it collided with earth. Just last month NASA's spacecraft returned to Earth with samples from Bennu, a 4.5 billion old asteroid, 60 million miles away. Initial studies show evidence of high carbon content and water, which together most likely indicate the building blocks of life on Earth. We are much more connected to our elements and each other than we can even imagine.
Many astronauts say that they went to space to discover "space or the moon", but they really discovered Earth.They all describe an intense feeling of protection of our planet when they return from their missions. They became overwhelmingly aware of the interconnectedness of life, a dissatisfaction with the way we treat that life and became especially very critical of our politicians. They saw how thin and fragile our atmosphere is. It is called: "The overview-effect." The distance let them zoom in, it sharpened their view. Earth is rotating at an average speed of 1000 miles per hour around it's own axis and the Earth orbits the Sun at an average speed of 67 000 miles per hour, which in turn whips around the center of the Milky Way at a speed of 490 000 miles per hour. And we are totally unaware that we are also astronauts moving through space on our very small planet at the edge of a galaxy, The Milky Way, at an enormous speed we cannot even feel.
The Long Now Foundation is an organization to foster long-term thinking. They encourage imagination at the timescale of civilization - the next and the last 10 000 years. They started writing their founding year as 01996. And this is my question: Will we act differently in our own lives when we think about Earth and Earthlings when the first digit turns from 0 to 1. Will we be less consumed by our own lives, problems, differences, even our own deaths? Will we think about what it means to represent planet Earth? Will we keep on fostering our political, social and religious differences, our cries for wars, even hate? Or will we treat all life forms better because we are connected, see our connection, not our differences? Will we slow down, stop worrying so much, because in light-years there is no hurry.