Return to Earth

William Gerstenmaier recalls seeing the first picture of planet Earth shot by Apollo 8: “when you see the little blue planet of the Earth, and then you can see that really thin blue atmosphere that we all live in.”

The realisation of our planet’s fragility caused many to realise the finiteness of our closed ecosystem, and how precious it is. By expanding our horizons, we’ve been given a much clearer focus on what we’re doing, and what kind of a future we’re heading into.

Futurist Buckminster Fuller put it famously: “We are all astronauts on a little spaceship called Earth,” and as we enjoy our ride aboard it, we must realize that we are also responsible for it. Thomas Pesquet and his crew aboard the International Space Station are examples of how our entire species should act on Earth, taking care of a closed ecosystem and using the resources provided sustainably to survive.

The Space Station is possibly the greenest human venture ever undertaken, and while it was constructed for space, it is just as focused on solving Earth’s problems. Thomas explains: “We only know about climate change because of space. Because of the satellites around the Earth that can measure everything. The height of the waves, the temperature of the sea, imaging the ice on the poles, CO2 in the atmosphere.” It’s up to us to use this information to become actors, rather than passive spectators.

For Karen Hitschke, successfully going into space serves as a reminder that we are capable of doing the impossible - and if we can do it up there, then we can definitely do it down here. In her words, “Space makes us very conscious about how unique everything we have on Earth is, our whole ecosystem is so precious. And it's only there once.”

Inspired by this urgency, entrepreneurs in sectors unrelated to space exploration began to work with satellite images and the remarkable tracking of data that they provide. With the infinite possibilities of data pools, we can act together to improve our lives on Earth.

If you could create a fleet of satellites, what would you do with the data provided? For Chris Boshuizen the answer was very clear: tracking the impact of our changing planet. Planet Labs sent a network of satellites into orbit with the mission of mapping the whole planet.

With the help of code, the company was able to meticulously track every tree being deforested on any given day, how many square meters of ice sheets were melting daily, and were able to send aid to remote towns after an earthquake in Nepal.

When Prateep Basu came to the realisation that most understandings of space technology were still linked to the vision of the space program (which was incubated in the 1950s), but that climate change and its related disasters were accelerating, he decided that he would temporarily curb his extraterrestrial dreams and work at making the lives of people down here on Earth a little better.

One example: With the birds-eye view that satellites provide us with, SatSure was able to track and save the lives of 12,000 people during a severe flood in Kerala, India in 2018.

Floods, drought, bushfires, earthquakes, landslides, extreme temperatures: Katherine Bennell knows that resource tracking and emergency disaster response is a crucial tech advancement provided and improved by space. The more data, the better? Not if it isn’t organized. If data is not intelligently processed and identified, it’s all just one big chaos that may even negatively affect those in need.

Katherine explains: “For example, when a nation is trying to respond to a disaster, it's often flooded with really generous offers of data from companies and other governments that it might not be familiar with. And it's not calibrated with the other datasets that they have. And so it can't be made use of in real-time.” But, if done right, our view from space together with structured data can help bring on the necessary regulations for the protection and preservation of our planet as well as its people.

When asked about the future, Jean-Jacques Dorian is convinced that “humankind is much more fragile than Planet Earth,” and if we do not take care of it, our planet will survive us. His advice is that we act like astronauts aboard the space station, in which there are only actors, no passive spectators.

Currently, on Earth, we have too many spectators. In just Jean-Jacques’ lifetime, the human population on this planet with finite resources has tripled, and so we must all work together: Educate, help, support and trust each other, to create a viable future for all of us.