"We're All in this Together:" Part Six: Threats and Opportunities

I really believe that if the political leaders of the world could see their planet from a distance of...100,000 miles, their outlook would be fundamentally changed. That all-important border would be invisible, that noisy argument suddenly silenced. The tiny globe would continue to turn, serenely ignoring its subdivision, presenting a united facade that would cry out for unified treatment.

Apollo 11 Astronaut Michael Collins                                                               

Carrying the Fire: An Astronaut's Journeys

What might be some positive lessons learned from the impact of the COVID Effect on global society?

One of the most important is that humanity, when we are united to response to a threat or opportunity, can achieve an enormous amount in a short period of time. A recently published essay by Charles Eisenstein makes this point in great depth. (1)

In the United States, we have already learned this lesson in the past, but seem to have forgotten it. For example, the US was deeply divided between isolationists and interventionists regarding the wars raging in Europe and the Pacific, until Pearl Harbor. Although much of the American Navy was destroyed in the attack, the nation rallied, rebuilt, and helped to win a world war in four years. Contrast that with the 20-year war in Afghanistan, which is still not quite over.

In response to the Soviet Union’s launching of the Sputnik satellite in 1957 and then the launching of the first human into orbit in 1961, President John F. Kennedy announced that the US would send a man to the moon and return him safely to Earth before the end of the decade. At the time, no one had any idea how to do that, but with a clear mission and a sense of urgency, NASA accomplished the goal, in spite of a stand down after a terrible fire killed three astronauts and in the wake of the president’s assassination.

In response to COVID, the Earth’s population has acted as a species, perhaps for the first time ever. The phrase of the astronauts, “We’re all in this Together” is stated as a self-evident truth...though it was not so clear even a month ago.

Maybe you like the Green New Deal, maybe you hate it. However, one criticism of it was that we simply could not do it; it was impractical to make such a massive change in our economy and society in time to “flatten the curve” of climate change. And what would we do to support all the people thrown out of work by the radical changes envisioned in the Deal?

Well, a lot of what we have done in the past month, like reducing the amount of fossil fuel use, and helping people who are unemployed because of the lockdown, look a lot like that proposal.

Perhaps we should do it, perhaps we shouldn’t, but we can no longer say we can’t do it.

It seems that humans only respond to threats or opportunities, doesn’t it? If the threat is large enough and immediate enough, we will overcome our differences and respond. If the opportunity is large enough and immediate enough, we will respond. The differences don’t go away, but they are submerged long enough to react to whatever has suddenly claimed our attention.

Humanity, for good or ill, is the most powerful species on Spaceship Earth. We hold the fate of so many other living things in our hands. The virus has taught us a critical lesson, if we are only willing to learn it and act on it: we can use this enormous power for enormous good.

(1) https://charleseisenstein.org/essays/the-coronation/

oCopyright, Frank White, 2020, All Rights Reserved

http://www.frankwhiteauthor.com

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"We're All in this Together: Part Five:" What is Humanity's Mission?

Note: It’s Easter and a time when we tend to think of death and rebirth, regardless of our faith tradition. Our world is experiencing a lot of deaths right now, the passing of truly innocent victims. My emphasis on lessons learned is not to ignore the sacrifices that are taking place today, but to honor them by doing our best to avoid similar catastrophes in the future.

The pandemic is challenging us to think about viruses, and ourselves, in new ways. How do we get a handle on something that has, to our knowledge, never before happened in human history? By that, I mean something that affects every human being on planet Earth and something that threatens every one of us.

            Interestingly, astronauts have been weighing in on this question, comparing what is happening with COVID to their experiences on the Space Shuttle and the International Space Station. On April 11, during a virtual version of Yuri’s Night, Chris Hadfield addressed this issue with a short video and a conversation with Loretta Whitesides. (1)

As he and other astronauts noted during Yuri’s Night and elsewhere, self-isolation is one aspect of the two situations that is very similar. Typically, there might be six astronauts on the ISS and they are physically isolated from the seven billion people on Earth, including their family members. As is the case for those of us in isolation during the pandemic, they have an ability to communicate with people on the planet, but not to visit them.

            A second similar element is the pervasive sense of danger that a space mission and the COVID virus engender in us. Astronauts are in a shirt-sleeve environment on the ISS, but, as Hadfield noted, they know that a micrometeorite might penetrate the hull at any moment. While their safety is being monitored by mission control personnel around the world, the harsh environment of outer space will be unforgiving if anything goes wrong.

Like us, the astronauts have to don protective clothing if they go outside. Even more than inside the Shuttle or ISS, danger is ever present on a spacewalk.

Finally, Hadfield pointed out that uncertainty is a big part of the experience. Astronauts leave the Earth on spacecraft and expect to return on a certain date, but that is not always the way things turn out. For example, we are currently marking the 50^thanniversary of the Apollo 13 mission, which was supposed to be the third lunar landing of the Apollo era. However, something went terribly wrong on the way to the Moon and getting the astronauts home safely became the actual mission. The same has happened with the Shuttle and ISS expeditions. Unexpected events can lengthen or shorten flights into orbit or the Moon.

Like the astronauts, too, Hadfield said that we are being taken out of our ordinary daily lives and given a unique experience. He said that Yuri Gagarin and most astronauts who followed him felt compelled to share the meaning of the spaceflight experience, which has come to be called “the Overview Effect.”

These similarities are striking and may give us a start at developing language to understand what I have begun calling “the COVID Effect.” (2) But what stood out for me the most was that Hadfield also said that each of us should ask ourselves “what is our mission” during this unique time; "what do we want to accomplish?” 

In another video, he noted that sending a crew to the ISS is designated as an “expedition” because you are a “small group of people doing something that has elevated risk in a very different environment...” (3)

So maybe we ought to consider this period of lockdown and social distancing as a period of time with a purpose, an expedition. Just as astronauts experience the Overview Effect when they are in outer space and return with a new worldview, maybe we will experience the COVID Effect during this time and emerge with a new perspective on ourselves, our planet, and our place in the universe.

The big difference between us, as “astronauts of Spaceship Earth” and astronauts like Chris Hadfield is that we did not know our mission when all of this began. We have to define it while we are in the middle of the expedition. Unlike a professional astronaut, who carries out a mission that has already been assigned to them, we get to choose the meaning of this experience, the nature of humanity’s mission. 

What do you think it might be?

(1) You can watch the video and conversation between Chris and Loretta, as well as the entire Yuri’s Night program here: https://www.space.com/yuris-night-2020-human-spaceflight-webcast.html

(2) I have resisted using this term, because I don’t want to be seen as creating new “Effects” to go with the Overview Effect. However, it really seems to fit the situation, so I am using it, but sparingly. If people find it valuable and it helps to move the conversation along, that will be a great benefit.

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(3) Here is a link to the other Hadfield video, which is excellent: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtd3rwDLn7E

Copyright, Frank White, 2020, All Rights Reserved

http://www.frankwhiteauthor.com

Stay Safe.Stay Strong.Stay Connected