When I was ten years old, the “Big Blue Marble” picture of the earth was taken from Apollo 17.
For much of the world, it was a perspective-changing event in a good way. I don’t know that there has been anything else like it in human history. There was not just a hope but a sense that it would usher in an era of cooperation and a new age of humanity.
May years later, in “Star Trek: Insurrection,” Captain Picard describes the perfect moment:” Seeing my home planet from space for the first time.”
Captain Kirk, in real life, recently had that same experience in real life, and instead, it brought him only profound sadness.
I, myself, can’t help but wonder whether, in that sadness, Shattner was remembering the hope we all had had on the day of the Big Blue Marble.
And then my mind jumps about to Insurrection, where Anij asks Picard, “… where can warp drive take us, except away from here?”
Our “here” still has a lot going for it and a lot of potential, though sometimes, I fear that days by it has less and less of each.
