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A Thesis Submitted to the Department of Environmental Sciences and Policy of Central European University in Part Fulfilment of the Degree of Master of Science

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A Thesis Submitted to the Department of Environmental Sciences and Policy of Central European University in Part Fulfilment of the Degree of Master of Science A thesis submitted to the Department of Environmental Sciences and Policy of Central European University in part fulfilment of the Degree of Master of Science The Ecological Significance of the Overview Effect: Environmental Attitudes and Behaviours in Astronauts CEU eTD Collection Anaïs VOSKI July, 2019 Budapest Notes on copyright and the ownership of intellectual property rights: (1) Copyright in text of this thesis rests with the Author. Copies (by any process) either in full, or of extracts, may be made only in accordance with instructions given by the Author and lodged in the Central European University Library. Details may be obtained from the Librarian. This page must form part of any such copies made. Further copies (by any process) of copies made in accordance with such instructions may not be made without the permission (in writing) of the Author. (2) The ownership of any intellectual property rights which may be described in this thesis is vested in the Central European University, subject to any prior agreement to the contrary, and may not be made available for use by third parties without the written permission of the University, which will prescribe the terms and conditions of any such agreement. (3) For bibliographic and reference purposes this thesis should be referred to as: Voski, A. 2019. The Ecological Significance of the Overview Effect: Environmental Attitudes and Behaviours in Astronauts. Master of Science thesis, Central European University, Budapest. Further information on the conditions under which disclosures and exploitation may take place is available from the Head of the Department of Environmental Sciences and Policy, Central European University. CEU eTD Collection ii Author’s declaration No portion of the work referred to in this thesis has been submitted in support of an application for another degree or qualification of this or any other university or other institute of learning. Anaïs VOSKI CEU eTD Collection iii CENTRAL EUROPEAN UNIVERSITY ABSTRACT OF THESIS submitted by: Anaïs VOSKI for the degree of Master of Science and entitled: The Ecological Significance of the Overview Effect: Environmental Attitudes and Behaviours in Astronauts Month and Year of submission: July, 2019. In the context of the 21st century’s intensifying ecological crisis and the New Space Age, this year’s 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon landing provides a functional framework for investigating potentially unknown connections between environmentalism and human space exploration. Limited evidence in the existing literature suggests that the Overview Effect – the cognitive shift in awareness experienced by astronauts as a result of seeing Earth from outer space – may contain much greater ecological dimensions than has been previously implied. Based on 14 first-hand interviews with astronauts, this study utilizes interpretive phenomenological analysis to qualitatively demonstrate that the Overview Effect has a distinct ecological significance that results in positive changes to astronauts’ environmental attitudes and behaviours. Besides this change, the results qualitatively map the breadth and depth of astronauts’ present environmental attitudes and behaviours, which has also not been done prior to this study. The outer space perspective of Earth, which includes negative perceptual views of anthropogenic ecological destruction on the surface of the planet, is shown to add a new and additional element to environmentalism, and as such discourse analysis is used to demonstrate how the ecological impulse concept is useful for advancing theoretical formulations of how spaceflight affects environmental attitudes. Furthermore, an expanded definition of the astroenvironmentalism concept is proposed to encapsulate this distinct form of environmentalism, to facilitate more straightforward discussions on the topic, and to make this phenomenon and form of environmentalism more relevant and accessible to a wider audience. CEU eTD Collection Keywords: overview effect, environmentalism, space exploration, astronauts, environmental attitudes, environmental behaviours, ecological impulse, astroenvironmentalism iv Acknowledgements I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Dr. Alan Watt, for his invaluable guidance and constructive suggestions. I am extremely grateful to have been able to pursue this research study with a supervisor who was equally interested and engaged with this unique topic, which has meant a lot to me and which I believe has made all the difference in how it turned out. Thank you so much for everything (including the Star Wars talks)! I would also like to thank the extended staff of the Department of Environmental Sciences and Policy and my 14 interviews participants who made this study possible in its present form. I am well aware of astronauts’ busy schedules, and so I am extra-thankful for the time and invaluable insight of Loren Acton, Jay Apt, the Anonymous participant, Walter Cunningham, Ron Garan, Richard Garriott, Jeff Hoffman, Dorothy Metcalf-Lindenburger, Story Musgrave, Al Sacco, Nicole Stott, Robert Thirsk, Franz Viehbock, and Jim Wetherbee. Finally, I wish to thank my mother and my partner for their invaluable support, patience and encouragement throughout my study. CEU eTD Collection v Table of Contents CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................... 1 1.1 BACKGROUND ................................................................................................................................ 1 1.2 AIMS AND OBJECTIVES ................................................................................................................... 3 1.3 APPROACH...................................................................................................................................... 4 1.4 STRUCTURE .................................................................................................................................... 4 CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW .............................................................................................. 6 2.1. HISTORICAL AND PHILOSOPHICAL DIMENSIONS .......................................................................... 6 2.1.1 Astroenvironmentalism ......................................................................................................... 11 2.1.2 Summary ............................................................................................................................... 12 2.2 COGNITIVE DIMENSIONS .............................................................................................................. 13 2.2.1 Greening the Overview Effect .............................................................................................. 17 2.2.2 Orbital Perspective............................................................................................................... 19 2.3 PSYCHOLOGICAL DIMENSIONS .................................................................................................... 20 2.3.1 Environmental Attitudes and Behaviours ............................................................................. 24 2.4 CONCLUDING REMARKS ............................................................................................................... 25 CHAPTER 3 METHODS .................................................................................................................... 27 3.1 OVERALL RESEARCH DESIGN ....................................................................................................... 27 3.2 METHODS OF DATA COLLECTION ................................................................................................. 29 3.3 METHODS OF DATA ANALYSIS ..................................................................................................... 34 3.4 VALIDITY, RELIABILITY, REPRESENTATIVENESS AND LIMITATIONS ........................................... 35 CHAPTER 4 RESULTS & DISCUSSION: EMPIRICAL DATA ANALYSIS ............................. 38 4.1 CATEGORY 1: ECOLOGICAL DIMENSIONS OF THE OVERVIEW EFFECT........................................ 38 4.1.1 Results .................................................................................................................................. 39 4.1.1.1 Outer space perspective of Earth.................................................................................................. 39 4.1.1.2 Distinct environmental dimensions .............................................................................................. 41 4.1.2 Discussion ............................................................................................................................ 47 4.2 CATEGORY 2: ENVIRONMENTAL ATTITUDES ............................................................................... 53 4.2.1 Results .................................................................................................................................. 53 4.2.1.1 Attitude change ............................................................................................................................ 53 4.2.1.2 Attitudes towards ecological issues ............................................................................................. 57 4.2.2 Discussion ............................................................................................................................ 63 4.3 CATEGORY 3: ENVIRONMENTAL BEHAVIOURS ...........................................................................
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