Wonderbringers Newsletter with Monica Parker
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Hello Wonderseekers!
I often speak about the power of the Overview Effect (in fact, it’s my opening story in most of my wonder keynotes.) The profound and permanent transition in consciousness that occurs when seeing the Earth from space was first identified by Frank White in 1987 and has since been proven as an elicitor of awe across cultures and nationalities. This particular wonderbringer has been a dream of mine, and so when commercial spaceflight began its emergent industry, I was excited. I knew that the ticket price was likely out of my league, but at least I could dream, as it was a heck of a lot closer in reality than my becoming an astronaut!
That enthusiasm has since waned with the most recent trip by Blue Origin, the private space company owned by Jeff Bezos. The crew were all women, which should have been a point of positive differentiation, but it feels like we have now moved past just commercial space flight to consumerist space tourism, and frankly, it has given me the ick.
Space exploration was not always supported by the public. In the early 1960s, there was significant backlash to the nascent NASA space program, with as many as 60% of Americans believing it was wasted money. (Gil Scott-Heron had a few choice words about it at the time.) Reading the history, I always felt the negativity was a bit myopic. But hindsight is 20/20, and seeing the historic accomplishments after the fact makes the money spent seem worthwhile. This trip though, with suits designed so bodycon that they required 3-D scans of the women’s figures to fit into them (and about which Katy Perry actually said, “We are going to put the ‘ass’ in astronaut.”), felt performative and preening, not profound.
I’m not disparaging the women who took the trip, especially Aisha Bowe and Amanda Nguyen, who have worked their entire lives to become astronauts. But it has me noodling a few questions. First, is whether space tourism may actually kill the Overview Effect. One key feature of a wonderbringer is its novelty, and now that rocket ships have become the playthings of billionaires and their WAGs, I wonder if the power of the Overview Effect may diminish. I also question if the tone deafness of Bezos spending millions on this flight while being an ardent supporter of an administration that is decimating NASA’s budget and erasing the contributions of actual female astronauts (especially when the NASA’s most tragic disaster was attributed to a lack of diversity of thought), may fuel a resurgent opposition to space exploration in general, which to my mind would be a pity.
What do you think? Would you love to experience the Overview Effect? Will space tourism diminish the wonderbringing impact of space? Would you go if it meant you had to wear Spanx?
Some wonderbringers for me this week:
Scientists identify specific cognitive skill linked to longer life in older adults: Verbal fluency.
What if your worry problem is really a planning problem? What this means for managing anxiety.
Listen: One Year: 1990: Pizzastroika: As the Cold War reached its climax, Pizza Hut got tangled up in geopolitics—and made a lot of dough.
Happy Passover to all who celebrated it and Happy Easter to all who will celebrate it!
With wonder,
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