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.