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launching to space of course was a

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momentous experience but odd enough it

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was quite familiar because of all the

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training we had

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so those 10 minutes and the capsule

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riding the soyuz rocket there was the

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vibration the pressure and the

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acceleration the pressure in your seat

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but after those eight minutes of busy

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time and

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hyper

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awareness if you want of our environment

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is when i had my first view of the earth

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the launch was at dusk

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so quickly we entered penumbra and into

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unite and by the time we reached orbit

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it was pitch black outside

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and shortly thereafter came our first

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orbital sunrise during the rendezvous to

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iss

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and i will never forget that site the

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thin blue line of the atmosphere the

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curve of the horizon

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that's when it became real really at a

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gut level

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i'm actually in space we are on orbit

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this is not a sin

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because your mind tends to

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go the reassuring route of pretending

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it's just a game i don't know that this

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is reality we are in space and orbit and

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that view that sunrise i'll never forget

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that through the crummy little side

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window of the soyuz still it's amazing

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i of course spent a lot of time at the

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cupola looking at the earth

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and what has always struck me every time

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i went there

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is

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how fragile it looks

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how alive it obviously is

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with the clouds the water it's like it's

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breathing

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auroras the presence of humans at night

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it's obvious with the lights

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but is the death around the earth that's

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startling

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how this beautiful

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shining oasis of life is there naked

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in the middle of

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black

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death

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and then there's the dance of the

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special bodies around the moon is there

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but the moon is just a rock

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the sun is just a ball of fire

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and here's the earth

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this perfect oasis so

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even though i knew this abstractly like

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everybody does now we have all seen

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those images to to sit with your own

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eyes you develop that sense of

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awe and also you cannot go to space and

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continue

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if you were

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thinking that resources are infinite

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they're obviously not it's in your face

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it's a finite system a closed loop

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system

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there's no new air no new water against

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the earth ever it's all recycled and has

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been for billions of years

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and it is perfectly balanced and

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perfectly matched to our knees we are

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matched to her that

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concrete realization

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that

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we belong to earth and not vice versa

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it's it's kind of a mental shift

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to see that we just know where else we

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could go we can talk about colonizing

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other planets but you know

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kind of smarter and cheaper to just take

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care of earth as she is so that was very

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endearing that vision and i can close my

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eyes and

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and always go back to the cupola looking

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at the planet and that blue line it's

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unbelievable

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it makes the earth look alive she's

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the little bubble we live in is tiny and

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that was very

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in a way sobering

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perspective to get

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how fragile

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unique

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and

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to be good shepherds of her

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it is the home of billions

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of humans and billions and billions of

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other species

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completely autonomous

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in the vacuum of space

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it's just a miracle you want to protect

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her because it is our only

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spacecraft the whole of us we're all

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astronauts living in a deadly vacuum

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space