Space
“All I saw was death”: when space travel moves from fiction to fact
The idea of escaping Earth’s atmosphere is an adventure that is becoming more and more likely for us mere mortals, as this celeb proved, with sadness.
William Shatner, Star Trek’s Captain Kirk himself, visited the edge of space back in October 2021. He became the oldest person to travel to space, at the age of 90 years old, on the Amazon-owned Blue Origin vessel.
Captain Kirk’s disappointing space trip
At the time it seemed that Shatner was over the Moon with the experience, save the moment Bezos brought out lackeys with champagne, disrupting the veteran actor’s explanation of the moment.
However, an excerpt from Shatner’s book, “Boldly Go: Reflections on a Life of Awe and Wonder,” the actor elucidates on his voyage and the intense sadness he felt.
“My trip to space was supposed to be a celebration; instead, it felt like a funeral,” he wrote, “It was among the strongest feelings of grief I have ever encountered. The contrast between the vicious coldness of space and the warm nurturing of Earth below filled me with overwhelming sadness.”
Experiencing the overview effect
This is a phenomena called the overview effect. This has been described by psychologists “a state of awe with self-transcendent qualities, precipitated by a particularly striking visual stimulus”.
A famous representation of this is this picture taken by astronaut Bill Anders on the Moon, gazing back at Earth no larger than the head of a pin.
“Everything I had thought was wrong. Everything I had expected to see was wrong,” Shatner continued, “I had a different experience, because I discovered that the beauty isn’t out there, it’s down here, with all of us. Leaving that behind made my connection to our tiny planet even more profound.”
“When I looked ... into space, there was no mystery, no majestic awe to behold... all I saw was death.”
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