The successful return to Earth of the Artemis II astronauts following their circumnavigation of the Moon has stimulated renewed enthusiasm for space exploration. As a planetary scientist I share this enthusiasm, and I can foresee many scientific benefits of returning astronauts to the lunar surface, which is the ultimate aim of the Artemis programme.
However, deep space missions like Artemis offer something more than scientific and technological achievements alone. They provide a cosmic perspective on our own planet. Images of Earth from the distance of the Moon, just next door in cosmic terms, reveal Earth to be what it truly is, a small, yet precious, planet suspended in the emptiness of infinite space.
The Artemis mission brings the planetary view to a new generation
Of course, Moon missions have provided this perspective before, most notably by the iconic Earthrise photograph taken by the Apollo 8 astronauts in December 1968. A strong case can be made that early images of the Earth during the Apollo missions played an important role in stimulating environmental awareness. Indeed, in the opinion of the prominent humanist and environmentalist René Dubos:
“It was worth the many billions of dollars spent on the manned space program to obtain further evidence that the earth is unique in the solar system. … [T]he accounts of the astronauts have helped us to experience on a cosmic scale how colorful, warm, inviting, and diversified the earth is against the bleakness and coldness of outer space.”
The Artemis mission now brings this perspective to a new generation, and this too may yield social and political benefits. Seeing our planet in its true cosmic perspective brings home how much is contained within it. The only life that we know to exist in the universe, including all humans who have ever existed, but also billions of other species over four billion years of planetary history, is confined to Earth, and is maintained by ecological and biogeochemical cycles that are unique to it.
This ecosystem is a planetary one. There are no political borders visible from space, and such borders have no objective meaning in a planetary context. When see Earth from space, the reality of our interconnectedness becomes undeniable, an experience that has been called the overview effect. Many astronauts share the sensation which Artemis II member Christina Koch observed based on her earlier stay on the International Space Station:
“You don’t see borders, you don’t see religious lines, you don’t see political boundaries. All you see is Earth and you see that we are way more alike than we are different.»
It becomes clear that we are all in it together. Planetary problems, ranging from climate change to endemic warfare, and loss of biodiversity to global pandemics, require planetary solutions. We can expect no help from the universe if we mess things up. We need to solve our planetary problems collectively on our own planet.
There are no political borders visible from space
Addressing planetary scale problems will require building planetary scale political institutions. Currently, the only global-scale institution that we have to manage global problems is the United Nations (UN), but the current structure of the UN is not conducive to solving them. This is mainly because the UN is predicated on nation-state sovereignty, but the planetary-scale problems we face transcend the borders of nation-states.
One possible structural improvement to the UN system would be to add a democratically elected UN Parliament to represent the citizens of Planet Earth in global decision-making. This, and other UN reforms such as those proposed in the Second UN Charter, would go a long way towards enabling a reformed UN to take more responsibility for managing the planet. Ultimately, a reformed and strengthened UN might evolve in the direction of a democratic federal world government, which may indeed be the only long-term political solution to managing planetary-scale problems.
Returning to the cosmic perspective, imagine, just for a moment, that a spacecraft constructed by intelligent aliens is approaching our planet and its crew view the Earth from outside, just as the Apollo and Artemis astronauts have done. What would they think when they discover that the dominant intelligent species on this planet has divided it into almost 200 independent political units constantly fighting each other and utterly unable to address their common problems, even to the extent of risking their own extinction? Would they not consider this to be a dangerous and inefficient, and perhaps immature, way to organise a planet? Wouldn’t they find it surprising. or even disappointing. that we haven’t managed to overcome historical and tribal differences to enable the efficient and peaceful management of our world?
