TIMOTHY PEAKE: The Overview Effect is something that

astronauts have been reporting back from the very early days of

human spaceflight, and it's described as a cognitive shift

in perspective of seeing your home planet from space. I think

at some level it's certainly spiritual for everybody.

AJAY TEGALA: Imagine floating 250 miles above the Earth.

No gravity, no noise, and gazing down at a fragile, beautiful

blue sphere hanging against the backdrop of infinite darkness.

Now imagine returning to Earth and never seeing the world the

same way again.

I'm Ajay Tagala. Ranger with the National Trust on Wicken Fen in

Cambridgeshire.

Welcome to Wild Tales, the Overview Effect.

Today, let's explore space, perspective, and how seeing the

Earth from a different point of view changes everything about

the way we interact with the world and each other.

We're examining something called the Overview Effect, a

mind-bending shift experienced by astronauts when they see the

Earth from space. We'll hear from astronaut Tim Peake, artist

Luke Jerram, and reaction to Luke's recent artwork, Helios,

which enables the general public to experience some of the awe

and wonder of our solar system without needing to fly in a

rocket.

The first step on the mission to understand the Overview Effect

leads us to Dyffryn Gardens near Cardiff.

It's a 55-acre Edwardian estate featuring beautiful gardens, an

arboretum, and was originally designed and built in the 1890s.

EARL SMITH: My name is Luke Jerram and I'm the artist behind

this sun artwork, Helios, which is here in Cardiff.

This is a seven meter sculpture of the sun and it's composed of

400,000 photographs of the surface of the sun. So it allows

the public to see all the details, all the sunspots,

filaments, spicules in perfect detail.

And it's suspended from a truss over the gardens and then in the

background we've got the beautiful house for everyone to

see as well. So yeah it looks really nice and in fact further

down the garden there's this beautiful long, almost like a

long pond I suppose. That creates beautiful reflections of

this sun artwork in that pond.

AJAY TEGALA: A crew are busily checking every aspect of the

artwork.

EARL SMITH: We've suspended artworks like this from trees

over lakes. We've suspended them from buildings, cranes, all

around the world, from Hong Kong to Dubai, from Sydney to Los

Angeles. I have a lot of experience of presenting it in

different contexts.

AJAY TEGALA: Are there any common reactions from the

audiences around the world?

EARL SMITH: There's a sense of awe and wonder when people

experience these artworks. And this artwork of the sun is

internally illuminated, so in the evening it should be very

beautiful. And it's got this rippling light that sort of

animates the surface of the sun as well.

AJAY TEGALA: So, what originally started Luke's journey to

becoming an artist when he was a child?

EARL SMITH: I was really interested in drawing and making

things. I was the sort of kid who would take stuff apart. So

I'd be taking radios or TVs apart to see what was going on

inside. And then, of course, you tried to put them back together

and they'd never quite go back together and work properly ever

again. But I think, yeah, artists and scientists and

engineers have got that curiosity.

And in fact, I had a place at university to do engineering,

but decided to do an art degree instead. But actually that

interest in thinking about the practicalities and forces and

structures and materials and inventing things, you know, I'm

still using all those ideas from engineering in my artwork.

AJAY TEGALA: But learning the language of science was only the

first step towards creating artwork that has been acclaimed

and displayed worldwide.

What other steps were key to Luke's journey in creating

Helios?

EARL SMITH: I'm from Bristol. Bristol's got the second highest

tidal range in the world there, so about 20 years ago, I

remember cycling over the river and noticing someone had stolen

all the water! And of course, it's the Moon that makes that

happen. And that gave me an idea to make an artwork controlled by

the Moon. And that was a project called Tide, and it took about

two years. I made this installation controlled by the

Moon.

But back then I also had this idea to make a replica Moon that

would be sort of emerging out of the sea, but back then the data

wasn't available from NASA, that they hadn't sent up the

satellites, and printing technology hadn't been invented,

so I literally had to sort of sit on the idea for 10 years,

waiting for the opportunity to then make a beautiful Moon

sculpture. That was the first project we made.

In fact, the first Moon we made was helium-filled, and it

popped! There's a film of me on CBBC of the... I'm like This

thing popping outdoors in very high winds, it's filming me with

my mouth open as all this helium, three and a half grams

worth of helium just going up like this!

But anyway, you know, that's the nature of doing new things

sometimes is you have to be willing to step into the

unknown. You've got to be able to recover and learn from

mistakes and where things go wrong. So anyway, the Moon was

very successful. I toured it all around the world, maybe 300

presentations of the Moon. And we created an Earth and then

we've created the Mars.

And then the opportunity came up to make the sun and I thought

actually there's that universal appeal isn't there with the sun.

It has significance in every culture and religion, inspired

music and poetry and the sun is a sort of life source for all

life on our planet so that's one of the reasons I made this sun.

AJAY TEGALA: Creating artwork that connects people from

different countries and young and old is a huge challenge.

EARL SMITH: I try to make artworks that have multiple

doors of entry so yeah a four-year-old child will enjoy

running around on the grass and hiding in the shadows and

they'll have a very memorable time but scientists get very

excited and astronomers get very excited by seeing these

sculptures of the Moon or the Earth or the sun as we've got

here up close and seeing all the details for the first time but

suppose the thing about the sun is we're not ordinarily allowed

to look at it you know so we're not used to looking at the

surface of the sun so it's quite unusual to have an artwork that

provides that opportunity.

AJAY TEGALA: It wasn't that long ago that some people saw art and

science as opposing disciplines. What helped Luke view them as

complementary?

EARL SMITH: I think both artists and scientists are interested in

phenomena. I'm interested in interrogating the world. What's

a rainbow made of? How does that work? You know, what's the

surface of the sun actually look like? And that interest is,

yeah, universal for both engineers and scientists and

artists.

With art, I suppose, I've realised that I can create an

artwork that can reach very large audiences and actually

that seems to be quite valuable for scientists to be able to

communicate their research. So I'm often collaborating with

scientists and my job is to communicate some difficult

scientific ideas and I can do that through art and bring in

new audiences for them as well.

AJAY TEGALA: So, what does it really feel like to see Earth

from space? Well, to truly understand the Overview

Effect... You need to speak to someone who's actually lived it.

Five, Four, three, two, one, zero.

Tim Peake was the first British astronaut aboard the

International Space Station. He spent six months orbiting the

Earth at 17,500 miles per hour, circling the planet more than

2,500 times. We catch up with him to find out about the

life-changing experience on a walk at the National Trust's

Petworth Park near the South Downs.

TIMOTHY PEAKE: As a young boy, I had that fascination of kind of

looking up to the stars in all wonder and had a Lego set, I

remember, with a big rocket on the back and I loved building

that. And so I guess there was always a spark of space right

from the beginning.

AJAY TEGALA: Tim's career path didn't lead directly to becoming

an astronaut. He joined the Army Air Corps and eventually became

a helicopter pilot. Over 18 years, he served in and tested

many different types of helicopters around the world,

including the iconic Apache in the USA.

As his experiences grew, he faced a tricky choice, whether

or not to stay in the army and be promoted out of flying, or

choose a riskier path that enabled him to stay in the

cockpit as a test pilot. He chose the latter, and it was

this choice that meant he was ready for the opportunity of a

lifetime.

TIMOTHY PEAKE: And that led me to being right place, right

time, right qualifications when ESA had their selection process.

AJAY TEGALA: ESA, or the European Space Agency, was

recruiting for astronauts, and Tim applied and was given a

chance, along with over 8,000 high-calibre applicants from all

over Europe. He took part in the year of tests, gradually getting

down to the last group.

TIMOTHY PEAKE: On the internet, the European Space Agency said,

we're going to announce the new astronauts on Wednesday. On the

Monday night beforehand, the phone rang. And it was a number

from Paris. And I thought, well, this is the rejection call

because whoever is being selected, they would have been

told at least a week in advance. They would have probably already

been out to Paris.

They would be prepped. They would have had some PR training,

all the rest of it. This is Monday night, can't possibly be

me. So I was fully expecting to have a pleasant conversation to

be told, I'm sorry you didn't make it. And the conversation

went the other way. They said, can you be in Paris on

Wednesday? We'd like you to join the European Astronaut Corps.

AJAY TEGALA: Despite the huge upheaval it had been for his

family, Tim felt it was an opportunity he couldn't miss.

TIMOTHY PEAKE: We didn't know where we would be living, what

life would be like, but it was one of those things you just

have to grasp the opportunity with both hands and how could

you possibly say no to being an astronaut?

AJAY TEGALA: Tim moved his family to Cologne in Germany and

began the extensive training required to blast off into

space.

TIMOTHY PEAKE: There's a huge amount of training to become an

astronaut. For a mission to the International Space Station.

AJAY TEGALA: Tim's life became a whirlwind of Russian language

lessons, survival training in Siberian forests, underwater

spacewalk simulations, and even deep cave exploration in

Sardinia to test how he operated in extreme isolated

environments.

TIMOTHY PEAKE: If you want to be a space station astronaut, you

need to be able to fly the spacecraft, dock the spacecraf,

do all the cargo operations, do all the maintenance, use the

robotic arm, conduct a spacewalk, be the doctor, be the

dentist, be the electrician, be the plumber, be the IT guy who

strips down the computer and we haven't even spoken about the

science yet. So you're talking about two and a half years of

basic training, which all space station crew members do and

that's great because it means that whether you're from Japan

or from Russia or from Canada or from Europe you're all doing

that same basic training package.

AJAY TEGALA: And finally, after years of preparation and

sacrifice, the moment arrives, sitting on top of a rocket

waiting to blast off to space on a mission to the ISS.

TIMOTHY PEAKE: Sitting on top of the rocket is quite an

interesting time because you've had so much happen before in

your career as an astronaut to date in terms of whoever becomes

an astronaut you have given up a previous career at which you

were very good. If you weren't very good at it you wouldn't

have been chosen to be an astronaut so everybody has

sacrificed a very good career doing something they loved and

something they were passionate about and you've gambled all of

that on "will i get a mission to space?" You've gone through many

many years of training which has had huge family upheaval.

Probably seeing your family less than 50% of the time for all of

those years. And you've kind of had this whirlwind of

preparation in getting you to the point where you're going to

sit on top of a rocket. And then finally, you're on top of the

rocket. And it's the culmination of all of that. And the hatch

closes and you have this kind of change of mindset, really, where

you're just focused on the mission ahead. And the only

thing you're nervous about is not going. People think "you're

not scared taking a trip on a rocket to space?" It's like, no!

I'm nervous about the launch being scrubbed and for some

reason not getting to space.

AJAY TEGALA: Tim bursts a misconception about the moments

before takeoff.

TIMOTHY PEAKE: We don't actually have a countdown. That's one of

the most surprising things for people is outside they have a

countdown. If you're watching the launch, you've got a nice

board there which has got your countdown ticking away for the

press and for the family and friends watching the launch but

inside the spacecraft what we're doing is we're going through the

checklist and then we're also watching the systems come online

so for us 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 that's not important at all. What's

important for us are things like the fuel systems pressurized,

the turbo pumps are up and running the engines are at 50

the engines are at 75 the engines are at 100 percent, two

second hold and now we go.

It's very hard to feel that moment because there's so much

vibration, there's so much noise that you don't actually feel the

rocket lifting off the launch pad. It's only after probably

about three or four seconds. The g-force starts to kick in as the

rocket builds speed and then you start getting pressed into your

seat you realize yeah we're definitely on our way now.

AJAY TEGALA: Tim described the experience of being inside a

rocket like being inside a giant power tool.

TIMOTHY PEAKE: In terms of the g-force it kind of builds

gradually but rapidly up to about 4 G's and then the first

stage boosters get jettisoned and then the g-force completely

washes off at that point. As the second stage picks up, so for a

moment there you feel almost a little bit weightless in the

rocket as those first stage boosters fall away. It feels

like you're kind of pitching forward, if you didn't know

better, you might think, oh, we're falling back to Earth

again. It's quite disconcerting. But then the second stage picks

up and it's a much gentler ride on the second stage, so about

two Gs. And then the second stage drops off and the third

stage picks up and the third stage. By now you're up in space

and the rocket is horizontal, it's not vertical anymore.

It's pretty much got most the altitude it needs. It now needs

speed. So the third stage is absolute acceleration. It's

mind-blowing. It's back up to 4g's. That's getting you from

probably about 10 times the speed of sound up to 25 times

the speed of sound. So that's 17 and a half thousand miles an

hour. You can't really comprehend what that's like.

AJAY TEGALA: The journey from Earth to space only takes nine

minutes and as you can hear it is hard to put into words the

feeling of leaving the planet on which you have thus far spent

your whole life and getting to space.

TIMOTHY PEAKE: It's an absolutely crazy nine minutes.

There's a huge amount of fun as well, a huge adrenaline rush and

at the same time you've got this childish excitement of what's

going on mixed with the professional astronaut who's

kind of keeping an eye on on the rocket on the way up but when

the main engines cut out, everything goes really quiet and

everything floats up into the cockpit so you instantly you can

let go of your checklist and it's floating in front of you

for the first time you're kind of experiencing proper

weightlessness in orbit and then you can unstrap you can take

your gloves off you can lift up the visor on your space suit you

can look out of the window and have a I glanced down at Earth

for the first time.

AJAY TEGALA: Tim describes the moment he first saw the Earth

from space.

TIMOTHY PEAKE: The first moment I saw the Earth was from the

Soyuz. First time I kind of floated up out the seat. And we

were going into the night because it had been a late

evening launch in December. So we were going over the Sea Of

Japan and darkness was all in front. We were just about to

coast out over the Pacific. And the first thing I saw was this

beautiful moonrise over the water. And that was just

stunning to see that from space. And then all the stars came out

with no light pollution and you're kind of looking up at the

Milky Way.

And it was a nice way of seeing Earth because it actually gave

me more appreciation for when I saw Earth in the daytime. We had

this stunning sunrise and then you see the beautiful blue

marble of our planet.

So I really loved the fact that it was revealed to me more

slowly, rather than just kind of into space and bang, there it

is, full daylight.

AJAY TEGALA: So, as Tim began to take in this beautiful scene,

what details drew his eye?

TIMOTHY PEAKE: The way the Earth reveals itself is incredible

because it's geology that stands out, and the weather systems. We

talk about it being a blue marble and it, of course,

two-thirds...

Of the planets covered in ocean so you would expect to see those

beautiful blues of the ocean and the white clouds but when you're

looking at the continents it's the the rock strata that stands

out or it's the color that stands out so the Sahara desert

for example is the beautiful orange color that you get it's

like looking at a martian landscape sand dunes that are

hundreds of meters tall making these incredible patterns the

bright orange ripple effect Or down in Eritrea and Ethiopia and

you get this amazing rock strata.

Or the rainforests where you get the lush green coming out. Or

when we launched it was winter so the continent of North

America was just covered in snow and ice. So it's big picture

stuff. And then once you've been wowed by the big picture stuff,

your eye starts to kind of hone in and pick out the details.

And that might be volcanoes that you'll see. It might be... Big

ice shelves that are carving off from Antarctica and then kind of

floating up and kind of enjoy then as time goes on picking out

those smaller details almost like precious moments just for

yourself where you might be the first person to notice a volcano

erupting in Kamchatka.

AJAY TEGALA: Observing from space the way Tim thought about

the world began to change.

TIMOTHY PEAKE: You just see the continents there are no borders

You don't see any lines on the map, so if you see something

amazing, like, oh, look at that asteroid impact crater, get a

photograph of it, and now I want to know where is it, and I've

got no idea.

I might know that it's in North Africa, but there are no lines

on the map exactly, so I couldn't tell exactly which

country in North Africa it was in. And that's true for the

whole globe, so you're seeing things on a planetary scale.

You're looking at the amazing geology of Earth rather than

actually the individual countries of Earth.

AJAY TEGALA: And so focusing on the Overview Effect, what did

this experience of seeing Earth add up to for Tim?

TIMOTHY PEAKE: The Overview Effect is something that

astronauts have been reporting back from the very early days of

human spaceflight. And I think it's described as a cognitive

shift in perspective of seeing your home planet from space. And

it's different for different people. I think at some level

it's certainly spiritual for everybody to see it.

And what strikes me really about seeing Earth from space is the

isolation, I think. It is very remote, very isolated. It's this

tiny, rocky jewel of a planet. And it's very special when you

see it from space. There's no doubting that there is a

vibrant, lively planet down there. Against the vast black

drop of space, you kind of think, wow, you know, that's it,

that's home.

AJAY TEGALA: Returning to Earth, Sounds more of a scary

experience than taking off in some ways, as the physics are

reversed and the rocket descends at terrifying speeds of

thousands of miles an hour.

Tim arrived back safely and his life continued at a fast pace,

as he continued to work in the space industry and used his

profile to fundraise for charities, communicating with

young and old how important it is to treasure and look after

the world we live in.

Back at Luke Jerram's artwork, The Helios, what does Tim feel

the role of art can play in helping the public experience

something akin to the Overview Effect? And how will that then

change the way that we look after our planet?

TIMOTHY PEAKE: I think that kind of work is incredibly important

with artists who are trying to help people to visualise what

space is like, what our solar system is like, our sun and our

home planet. When we go into space, we're so lucky we see

that with our own eyes and there's no hiding from it.

There's no hiding from the level of isolation and remoteness that

you feel, not just as an individual in space, but you

feel that for the whole planet. You think, oh God, that's it,

that tiny little rock.

And the sun is magnificent. The Moon is beautiful. But here on

Earth, it's very easy to not appreciate that. We've got a

lovely blue sky above us today and you don't really... think

about the fact that that's not nice and comforting and blue up

there that's really scary black and it goes on for infinity and

16 kilometers up there you know you're going to be in an

incredibly hostile environment and the sun is not this warm

yellow glow that we all draw as kids the sun is this bright

white nuclear fusion reaction it's this amazing star that's

powering the whole solar system.

And I think art plays a really valuable part in helping people

to visualise that and helping people to appreciate the

realities of what it's like out in space.

AJAY TEGALA: So with that in mind, returning to Luke Jerram's

artwork, how did members of the public respond to seeing Helios?

CARRIE: I'm Carrie. My first response was just awe. I spent

quite a long time just sort of sitting under it, around it,

seeing the different perspectives, seeing the detail

of it it's more than maybe you'd expect You just think, oh, big

sun, that'll be really cool, and then actually it kind of draws

you in and you just kind of want to hang out around it, really.

EARL SMITH: I'm Earl Smith. Yeah, it certainly is

significant. The colours and just the shape of it all is

truly amazing.

SUE FROST: I'm Sue Frost. Quite impressive, I think, isn't it?

But I never knew that hotspots were specifically in those

spaces. I thought they might kind of move all over the place.

I find it quite immersive and quite mesmerising, if I'm

honest.

CARRIE: It is that awe-inspiring, oh wow, that's

what keeps us alive, that's what brings life. And I think it is

that sheer scale and the awesomeness of our solar system

and of our Earth. It brings a bit of hope as well. Actually,

we are like stewards of this planet, we have a lot to care

for.

AJAY TEGALA: And now, a final reflection from Tim.

TIMOTHY PEAKE: It makes you appreciate that we are all

sharing the atmosphere, because you see with every one of those

sunrises and sunsets, you see how thin the atmosphere is. 16

kilometers, that's nothing. And when the sunlight goes through

it, it's this tiny, tiny strip of gas. You kind of think, wow,

you know, how lucky are we that Earth has trapped that layer of

gas.

And that layer of gas is just the right composition at the

moment to sustain all life as we live. We know it. And so as far

as we know, you know, we're the only planet in the solar system

where there is life. Could be on the moons of Jupiter and Saturn

where there are liquid oceans, who knows. But it makes you

appreciate what we have down here. And you also see how

interconnected everything is.

You see the vast weather systems. You can see them

building in the Atlantic in hurricane season. You can see

the dust storms in the Sahara and the impact it has. We had

the wildfires in Alberta when I was on board in 2016, spread

across the whole continent of North America, and you see the

smoke just trapped in our tiny atmosphere spreading.

And it makes you realise that everything's connected, and that

thin atmosphere, there's only so much that you can put into it

before it starts to affect everybody on the planet.

AJAY TEGALA: Tim Peake's time in space lasted 186 days. But its

impact has reached far beyond the confines of the

International Space Station and inspired people from all around

the world. Perhaps that's one of the lasting legacies of his

space travel. Not just the scientific or technological

achievements, but the valuable perspective it offers each one

of us.

Thanks for listening to this episode of Wild Tales. If you

liked it, why not give us a like or a follow? We will be back

soon with another episode in a couple of weeks. But if you

can't wait that long, why not check out our other nature

podcast, Nature Fix? Or if you like your history too, there's

Back When. I'll see you next time.