Nothing prepared Nicole Stott for her first view of Earth from space. “I was overwhelmed,” she says. “I felt awe, and then this connection with gratitude to be looking at our glowing, colorful planet in deep space.”
Stott’s first spaceflight was in 2009 as a flight engineer on the NASA space shuttle to support a three-month International Space Station mission. At the start of that mission, she conducted a nearly seven-hour spacewalk to perform maintenance. “I’ll tell you, a spacewalk, that’s one of the times of my life where I felt the most alone and detached from any other human being,” Stott has said. “But at the same time, I also felt the closest and most connected to humanity.”
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Philosophically, Stott says, her “Earthrise moment,” a reference to the 1968 photograph taken by astronaut Bill Ander of the Earth rising over the moon, “changed everything for me.” That experience “was what I wanted to carry back—the awesomeness of the whole idea that we live on a planet. I felt that we all needed to be in awe of the Earth that we’re surrounded by every day.”
We can cultivate a profound sense of being part of a vast crew on Earth.
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After 27 years at NASA, Stott, 61, is now retired. In her 2021 book, Back to Earth, she writes that astronauts want to share the extraordinary perspective of the Earthrise moment because “we believe it has the power to raise everyone’s awareness of our role as crewmates here on Spaceship Earth.”
We met this past December in Miami. Stott was there on behalf of UNESCO and Nautilus for a fascinating conversation with ocean explorer Victor Vescovo at the Frost Science Museum about the similarities of their experiences in deep space and the deep ocean. Stott is an artist and is the first astronaut to paint with watercolors in space, a swirling of bluish waves from the heavens.
Stott and I recently spoke over Zoom about the insights she gained from her space experiences, including the value of plants and art in space, and how she continues to advocate for a more conscious and cooperative approach to addressing the challenges facing our planet.
