Rethinking the Overview Effect
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Contents Volume 21 • Number 1 2014 www.spacehistory101.com Features FROM THE ARCHIVES 4 Atlas vs. a Ford Galaxie: Ground Handling Incidents in the Cold War Era By Joel W. Powell 11 Flying in Deep Space: The Galileo Mission to Jupiter (Part II) By David Clow 26 An Interview with Charles “Chuck” Friedlander Former Chief of the Astronaut Support Office, Cape Kennedy By Donald Pealer 39 Rethinking the Overview Effect By Jordan Bimm 48 Navigation, Guidance, and Control of a Saturn Rocket and Its Predecessors By Ed Durbin While searching for high-resolution images to accompany the article on “Primate Lives”, volume 20 #4, we came across this undated, uncredited image. Book Reviews FROM THE ARCHIVES 62 An Acre of Glass: A History and Forecast of Gordon Cooper up to Apollo 13. Of course, if I had received command of the Telescope Normal Apollo crew rota- Apollo 13, it would have been Book by J. B. Zirker tions from back-up crew to my “lost moon.” I would not Review by Gregory A. Good prime flight crew was as fol- have been able to walk on the lows—the back-up crew would moon because of the flaw in the oxygen tank which caused the 63 Eyes in the Sky: Eisenhower, the CIA, and be named the prime crew of the third mission down the line in explosion…If I had been select- Cold War Aerial Espionage the Apollo flight program. ed for command on Apollo 13, Book by Dino Brugioni Based on this rotation, I should there would not have been a falling behind in training Review by James David have been selected as com- mander of Apollo 13. However, because of my extensive work office “politics” in the Astronaut experience during back-up on 64 Pseudoscience Wars: Immanuel Corps, the return to flight status Apollo 10. Shepard was very Velikovsky and the Birth of the Modern Fringe of Alan Shepard after the cor- fortunate to be pulled from rection of an inner ear disorder, command of “13” and placed on Book by Michael D. Gordin and the view points of certain “14.” As it turned out, he was Review by Roger D. Launius NASA managers allowed for the only one of us Mercury guys the selection of Shepard ahead to actually fly to and land on the Cover Image of me for command of Apollo moon. Artist’s view of Galileo flying past Jupiter’s volcanic moon Io. The 13. Shepard fell behind in train- RR Auction, Lot 540, image incorrectly shows the spacecraft’s high gain antenna in its ing and was allowed to switch 21 November 2013 fully deployed position. Credit: NASA to commander of Apollo 14, moving Jim Lovell and his crew RETHINKING THE OVERVIEW EFFECT 4 2013 Winner of the Sacknoff is now influencing spacecraft design. Environmental and peace movements have Prize for Space History also evoked the overview effect to justify “whole Earth” or “borderless” perspectives. Launched in 2011, the peer- Advocates for space science and technology reviewed prize is awarded annually have used the idea in attempts to accelerate to a university student and is investment and speed technological change, designed to encourage research and and have even begun work on virtual reali- scholarship in space history. ty and immersive video design with the hopes of triggering the overview effect via Rules and details can be found at: simulation here on Earth. The overview www.spacehistory101.com effect has been such a successful idea that, real or not, it has become a self-fulfilling prophesy. People now go to space expecting been lopsided in favor of overview existing. By Jordan Bimm to experience it.5 In 2008, Frank White Then, I present three archival data sets that founded The Overview Institute in complicate White’s claim that the overview Washington, DC, to consolidate support and effect is a timeless, pre-existing natural phe- I have left the world. There is only the further popularize the idea.6 nomenon that affects all people in a similar ship to identify myself with… and with This paper looks at three historical way. First, I investigate the Cold War mili- this adrenaline inflicted state floats the data sets from the archive that complicate tary origins of three key ideas White uses to feeling of detachment. the evidence for, and conclusions drawn support “overview”: James Lovelock’s from, White’s concept of the overview Gaia hypothesis, Richard Buckminster William Bridgeman effect. In Overview, White’s argument is Fuller’s concept of “spaceship Earth,” and test pilot, 1955 that the overview effect is a reliably pro- Apollo 17’s famous “blue marble” photo- duced mental effect—a naturally occurring graph, which became emblematic of these Introduction phenomenon “between the environment “total system,” cybernetic visions. Drawing In his 1987 book, The Overview and the human mind” that is triggered when on scholarship in the history of science, and Effect: Space Exploration and Human the brain gets a realistic view of Earth from science and technology studies, I will first Evolution, American author Frank White high up above. White argues that the grow- argue that these models of Earth are deeply coined “the overview effect” to describe a ing number of astronaut tales about experi- political objects, asserting a claim of collection of positive mental experiences encing a “conversion” of sorts on seeing the American control and technological mas- reported by astronauts and cosmonauts Earth from space reflects a natural feature tery at a global scale, and that the overview returning from outerspace. Since then, of the universe that affirms ambitions to effect implicitly adopts these cultural White’s idea that viewing the Earth from colonize outerspace. For White, overview is claims. Second, because astronaut tales space fundamentally changes people “for “natural” and not a product of history, cul- comprise the main evidence for the the better” has resonated with a number of ture, or any other external social factor. overview effect, I look to the history of important groups, including space psychol- However, a look in the archive sug- American space psychology, where there ogists, space industry advocates, politicians, gests—ironically—that “overview” is an have long been questions about the reliabil- members of environmental and peace all-too-narrow view of the possible ways of ity of astronaut self-reporting, and tension movements, and most recently, members of seeing and experiencing planet Earth. In among astronauts and psychological data the public with an interest in space explo- this paper, I suggest the overview effect is gatherers. The last data set I draw from doc- ration, who in 2013 shared the short film only one possibility among many for the uments a historical alternative to the Overview via social media.1,2 In 1997, U.S. human experience of viewing the Earth overview effect, something that 1950s President Bill Clinton referenced the from outer space, and that it is worthwhile American aviation and space medicine overview effect in his opening remarks at to reconsider the origins and implications of experts described as “the break-off phe- The White House Conference on Climate White’s idea. First, to better introduce the nomenon”—feelings of separation, anxiety, Change.3 In space psychology, the concept, I review the existing literature on and depression that were being reported by overview effect has become an axiom guid- both sides of the debate surrounding the military pilots after viewing the Earth from ing research and development projects, and existence of the overview effect, which has very high altitudes. These three data sets Q U E S T 21:1 2014 39 www.spacehistory101.com complicate and call into question White’s that we are a member of the whole human collective unconscious of humanity since conclusion that the overview effect consti- family. It goes beyond being a citizen of the dawn of awareness.”12 This implies tutes an ontologically pre-existent natural- the Earth—you are really a citizen of the that technological types exist in stable ly occurring “sign from the universe” indi- universe. When you are in orbit, you ask forms independent of when human cul- cating that humans should colonize outer yourself, ‘Why do people have the differ- tures make and use them. White argues space as quickly as possible. ences that they have down on Earth?’ You that the “effect” represents “a message” or see that Earth is just a small part of a large “a signal” from the universe itself: “the universe, and you have a feeling about it larger environment [the universe] is sup- Background: What Is the 9 Overview Effect? that is hard to describe.” porting these positive directions in evolu- tion because humanity has something use- On an internet radio show in 2007, - - - ful to offer the universe as a whole.”13, 14 White described the overview effect as: Jake Garn (STS-51-D): “You fly One of White’s core beliefs is that humanity’s destiny is to colonize the entire That experience of seeing the over Ethiopia and you have vivid pictures universe by passing through three Earth from orbit, or from the Moon, in your mind of those starving little kids Kardashev-like stages of development that and having a realization of the inherent with their bony ribs, or Iran and Iraq and he refers to as “three civilizations”: Terra unity and oneness of everything on the the war that is going on there, or (the earth), Solarius (the solar system), and planet. It’s a realization that we are all Afghanistan or Nicaragua, and you look at Galaxia (the galaxy, and beyond). In the one in terms of our place in the uni- the trouble spots.