The Orbital Perspective: Lessons in Seeing the Big Picture from a Journey of 71 Million Miles

259 Pages·2015·4.5 MB·English

by  Astronaut Ron Garan, Muhammad Yunus

T h e
OO rr bb ii tT aa ll PP ee rr ss PPeecc tTiivvee
On the cover is a photo that my crewmate and space walking partner Mike
Fossum took of me while I was in the cupola of the International Space Sta-
tion. The photo was taken from the Russian docking compartment Pirs as we
passed over coastal Australia.
I have always called this picture Downside Up Down Under. Peter Gabriel
inspired the name of the photo through the many discussions he and I have
had, both on Earth and while I was in space, about the nexus between space,
music, culture, and the orbital perspective. Peter’s song “Downside Up” and
his explanation of the song perfectly capture the sentiment of the photo and
the essence of the orbital perspective: “At one point the world turns upside
down, and you have to imagine lying on a field of grass and looking up at the
sky long enough that you start to see the sky as down, as an ocean below you,
and that is the state ‘downside up.’ ”
Downside up, upside down
Take my weight from the ground
Falling deep in the sky
Slipping in the unknown
All the strangers look like family
All the family looks so strange
The only constant I am sure of
Is this accelerating rate of change
. . .
I stand here
Watch you spinning
Until I am drawn in
A centripetal force
You pull me in
— Peter Gabriel
T h e
o rO rb bi Ti tAall PPeerr ssPPeecctTi vive e
Lessons in Seeing the Big Picture from a
Journey of Seventy-One Million Miles
A s T r o n A u T
r O n G a r a n
The Orbital Perspective
Copyright © 2015 by Ronald J. Garan, Jr.
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First Edition
Hardcover print edition ISBN 978-1-62656-246-2
PDF e-book ISBN 978-1-62656-247-9
IDPF e-book ISBN 978-1-62656-248-6
2014-1
Produced and designed by BookMatters; copyedited by Todd Manza; indexed by Leonard
Rosenbaum; proofed by Janet Blake. Cover design by Steve Pisano. Front cover photo by
Mike Fossum and reproduced courtesy of NASA.
To my family: my wife, Carmel, and our sons, Ronnie,
Joseph, and Jake. Thank you for being my inspiration
and for enabling me and accompanying me on this
incredible journey. And to all those laboring to make life
on Earth as beautiful as our planet looks from space.
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cOnTenTs
Foreword, Muhammad Yunus  ix
Preface  xi
inTrOducTiOn A Shift in Perspective  1
ParT i lOOKinG sKYWard
One Humanity’s Home in the Heavens  13
TWO Space, the Shared Frontier  23
Three Lessons in Collaboration from the ISS Program  35
ParT ii lOOKinG earThWard
FOur One Moment in Space  47
Five The Orbital Perspective  63
six The Key Is “We”  77
ParT iii lOOKinG FOrWard
seven Camp Hope  97
eiGhT Arrested Development  109
nine Mass Collaboration  127
cOnclusiOn A Web of Trust  149
Notes  171
Acknowledgments  175
Index  177
About the Author  185
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FOreWOrd
As you read of Ron’s discovery of his life’s goal and purpose dur-
ing his time in space, I hope you will also reflect on your own
life’s goal and purpose here on Earth. What are the problems you
consider impossible to solve—hunger, poverty, war, environmen-
tal issues—and how can you gather together with others to solve
these problems? Use Ron’s idea of the orbital perspective as a way
to erase obstacles, boundaries, and resistance to any problem.
If you had asked bankers thirty years ago whether a bank could
lend billions of dollars to millions of extremely poor women in a coun-
try like Bangladesh without any collateral and with nearly a one hun-
dred percent repayment rate, they would have laughed at you! Today,
this is done globally—even in New York, San Francisco, and Los
Angeles—and is a tested tool to counter poverty and give self- reliance.
Another kind of business, a nondividend business, is becoming popu-
lar globally to address problems that were never considered amenable
to sustainable solutions by business methods. What other tools can
you discover if you put your mind and heart into the question?
Ron has shared with us his unlimited view of Earth’s possibili-
ties from the vantage point of the International Space Station. May
we use this beautiful perspective for the good of all with whom we
share our beautiful home, this fragile oasis known as Earth.
Muhammad Yunus
Nobel Peace Laureate
ix