The famous Earthrise photo taken by William Anders during the Apollo 8 mission was a relief
from the paramount Cold War tensions. It invited worldwide audiences to reflect on the absurdity
of conflicts, insurgencies, ideological clashes, and political manipulations, given that we are but
a fragile blue marble in the infinitely spanning cosmic background. Just 6 years ago, in 1962,
JFK presented the famous speech at Rice University, claiming that “we choose to go to the
Moon… not because they are easy, but because they are hard.” This intrepid statement highlights
the incessant human curiosity and innate desire to define uncharted territories as a goal for all of
humanity. Nevertheless, the forlorn sentiments of being alienated in the apathetic vacuum, mixed
with nostalgia for the real gravitational pull of Earth, climax at the moment when the astronauts
look back on the place they call home from outer space. This truly represents a standing
milestone for humanity and space exploration. For the first time, we are truly cognizant of our
insignificance; for the first time, our incompetency within the universe is definitive; for the first
time, humanity has begun to ponder our position within its nursery: are we destined for demise,
given the urgent global exigence that seems detrimental to the continuation of our civilization
itself, or will we evolve from those polarized, stimulated, emotionally manipulated beasts and
eventually collaborate as intellectually inclined coalitions to establish peace and progress once
and for all? We may be perplexed in the journey to search for life and civilization, but ultimately,
humanity will be motivated to evaluate its place, preventing us from despairing over our menial
importance.
In the future, as the footsteps of humanity echo across the solar system, with colonies arising
from the dust of Mars and beyond, the days on Earth will gradually become analogous to fairy
tales from “classical” eras, a forgotten age that seems buried in the enigmatic remnants of a
depleted planet. Technologies may have evolved into something we cannot fathom. Yet even
then, our successors will accidentally stumble across this picture, and an inherited spark of
perplexity, curiosity, and ingenuity will be intertwined in the fabric of humanity. Feelings of a
faint, solemn nostalgia, for reasons they will not be able to fathom, will overflow like a flash
flood breaking through the enigmatic barriers of time back to where it all began. Like F. Scott
Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, humanity, too, is bound to this paradox of progress and memory:
“So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”