When NASA astronaut Ron Garan attached himself to a robotic arm that swept him in an arc over the International Space Station, giving him a view of the earth suspended in the fathomless darkness of space he experienced the Overview Effect the epiphany - the sudden and permanent shift in perspective and thinking that other astronauts have described.
He later articulated the experience in his book "The Orbital Perspective", wriring, "As I approached at the top of this arc it was like that the time stood still, and I was flooded with both emotion and awareness. But as I look down to the earth - this stunning, fragile oasis, this island has been given to us, and that has protected all life from the harshness of space a sadness came over me and I was hit in the gut with an undeniable, sobering contradiction.
Inspite of the overwhelming beauty of this scene, serious inequity exists on the apparent paradise we have been given. I couldn't help the thinking of nearly one billion people who don't have clean water to drink, the countless number who go to bed hungry every night, the social injustice, conflicts, poverty that remain pervasive across the planet."
A taste of that perspective for those of us tethered to the earth might soon be closer than you think. According to the guardian, researchers from the University Of Missouri and teaming up with SpaceVR, a virtual reality startup to see if the overview effect might be replicated here on earth. SpaceVR's approach to virtual reality takes the technology beyond goggles; the company has partnered with sensory deprivation/floatation spas, where people pay to spend an hour experiencing weightlessness by floating in large pods filled with warm water and epsom salts. SpaceVR also adds a high definition (HD) orbital experience, placing the floater in space, presumably viewing the earth. The researchers have found out if the experiences have the potential to change the people to the same degree as the astronauts.
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