WHEN Star Trek actor, William Shatner, finally went to space he discovered simple truths about our own home planet, which bear repeating, now, two years later.
On returning from the final frontier, the Captain Kirk actor said “I’m so filled with emotion about what just happened. It’s extraordinary, extraordinary. It’s so much larger than me and life. It hasn’t got anything to do with the little green men and the blue orb. It has to do with the enormity and the quickness and the suddenness of life and death.
“To see the blue colour whip by you, and now you’re staring into blackness … everybody in the world needs to do this. Everybody in the world needs to see this.”
“At 90 years old, I went to space, after decades of playing an iconic science-fiction character who was exploring the universe.
“I thought I would experience a deep connection with the immensity around us, a deep call for endless exploration.
“I was absolutely wrong. The strongest feeling, that dominated everything else by far, was the deepest grief that I had ever experienced.
“I understood, in the clearest possible way, that we were living on a tiny oasis of life, surrounded by an immensity of death. I didn’t see infinite possibilities of worlds to explore, of adventures to have, or living creatures to connect with.
“I saw the deepest darkness I could have ever imagined, contrasting so starkly with the welcoming warmth of our nurturing home planet.
“This was an immensely powerful awakening for me. It filled me with sadness. I realized that we had spent decades, if not centuries, being obsessed with looking away, with looking outside.
“I did my share in popularizing the idea that space was the final frontier. But I had to get to space to understand that Earth is and will stay our only home. And that we have been ravaging it, relentlessly, making it uninhabitable.“