- When you go to space and you look back at the planet
from that orbital vantage point,
the Earth is this little blue marble.
The perspective that you get from that vantage point
cognitively changes you.
(peaceful music)
The orbital shift, for me, happened after I broke bread
with my space station crew mates
and my space shuttle crew mates.
We're listening to Sade, we're eating this meal,
and we're doing what people used to fight against.
Russia and Germans were on our flight.
It just showed me how close we are as countries,
as races, as species.
To think that we have all these, you know, distances
and separations and geographical boundaries,
but in space you don't see any of those.
I think the thing that changes your thinking in space
is that you're doing something that only a very small
number of people have done.
In the history of human space flight
it's only been like 500 people that have
had this opportunity to go off the planet.
And now you're one of them.
You get much calmer when you come back from space
because the things that you thought were a big deal
are no longer a big deal.
These things that are happening day to day,
like a hang nail or tripping,
or someone cutting you off in traffic,
it pales in comparison to the experience that you have had.
Space transformed me to think about
how do we get that next generation to take my seat
and go off somewhere else and do much better things?
(rockets firing)