Can a Space Eye View of the Planet Change Us?

So if we want to leap forward and change consciousness we may need to take a trip into outer space Ross Pomeroy speculates in his latest Big Think piece. All we need to do is peer out the window as we see the earth--our beautiful spot of vivid blue floating serenely in a black cosmos. As Apollo 9 astronaut Russell Schweikart told self proclaimed space philosopher, Frank Wright "When you go around the Earth in an hour and a half, you begin to recognize that your identity is with that whole thing," ..That makes a change. You look down there and you can't imagine how many borders and boundaries you cross, again and again and again, and you don't even see them. There you are -- hundreds of people in the Mideast killing each other over some imaginary line that you're not even aware of, and that you can't see." To come up with a term to describe the emotion that is created and the change that seems to occur is hard. The "Overview Effect" does not seem quite right but it is in use for now. Now psychologists Melanie Rudd and Jennifer Aaker of Stanford University and Kathleen Vohs of the University of Minnesota are studying these "feelings of awe in a laboratory setting. They found that these moments made subjects feel like they had more time available, and that time itself was slowing down. This made them more patient, less materialistic, and more willing to volunteer to help others. Take a look at this short documentary and judge the effect for yourself.

OVERVIEW from Planetary Collective on Vimeo.

I am sure Richard Branson and other entrepreneurs will want to use footage like this to sell us on buying a ticket on the next shuttle trip. After all we do live in the 21st century. Of course for the cost of the ticket we might begin to solve some problems here on planet earth. Perhaps a trip to the local iMAX theater might be a good substitute.