HAPPY PALE BLUE DOT DAY – THERE MUST BE HOPE

It’s Earth Day and to me, aside from the much repeated phrases about conservation, recycling, Green lifestyles, there is one other facet…

Consider the words of Carl Sagan, astronomer, author and creator of the noted TV series Cosmos that first enlightened a whole generation of dreamers. Reading from his book Pale Blue Dot…

"We're living on a tiny little dust mote in left field on a rather insignificant galaxy. And basically this is it for humans. It strikes me that it's a shame that we're squabbling over oil and borders." Bill Anders, Apollo 8 (and noted astro-photographer)

“"You come back impressed, once you've been up there, with how thin our little atmosphere is that supports all life here on Earth. So if we foul it up, there's no coming back from something like that." John Glenn, former U.S. Senator and first American to orbit the Earth back in 1962

"I felt like I was almost looking at a secret... that humans weren't supposed to see this. This is not anything you're supposed to see. It's too beautiful," said astronaut Michael Massimino in an interview with Space.com (Click the orange to read it)

I always wanted to be a space traveler. The best I could get as a boy was to lie on my back by my back door so that I was looking up at the sky and the puffy white clouds. The overhang just above my head was a stepping platform and from it I could imagine being on a space station orbiting the Earth, and were I to step from it I would fall up….fall down from above the clouds to the Earth below. It is an amazing perspective. Try it sometime.

Happy Earth Day!

 

MisterWriter