The View From Above

Astronauts are an interesting bunch. They are outgoing, intelligent, motivated, driven, hard-working…you name it. But most of them are technical people. They’re engineers, and scientists, and military pilots. They’re not artists, they’re not writers, they’re not orators. In my experience, this means they always have a difficult time answering one of the most frequently asked questions. No, I’m not talking about “how do you go to the bathroom in space,” but something more like this:

“What’s it like to look back at the Earth from space?”
“What was it like to see the Earth from space for the first time?”
“How does it feel to look at the Earth?”

Astronaut Mike Massimino is one of the few astronauts I’ve seen who has really embraced the public outreach part of the job, and he’s really great at it. He’s flown in space twice, most recently as a member of the STS-125 crew that serviced the Hubble Space Telescope in May 2009. On that mission, he became the first astronaut to tweet from space, and since returning, he’s done some great “behind the scenes” interviews with the crews of more recent missions. (Those, plus a lot more, are on NASA’s ReelNASA YouTube channel.)

On Wednesday night, Massimino was a guest on David Letterman’s Late Show, and Dave asked him that very question:  what was it was like to see the Earth from space for the first time?   He describes his thought process and feelings, and something about how heartfelt his description is actually gave me goosebumps.  It’s rare to see an astronaut describe anything quite so eloquently.

Enjoy.