<p>It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we&rsquo;ve ever known. The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.</p><h2 id="the-earth">The Earth</h2><p>Look again at that dot. That&rsquo;s here. That&rsquo;s home. That&rsquo;s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of,<strong> every human being</strong> who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every &ldquo;superstar,&rdquo; every &ldquo;supreme leader,&rdquo; every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there&ndash;on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.</p><h3>Houston</h3><p>that may have seemed like a very long final phase. The autotargeting was taking us right into a &hellip; crater, with a large number of big boulders and rocks &hellip; and it required &hellip; flying manually over the rock field to find a reasonably good area.</p><ul><li>I am a stranger. I come in peace. Take me to your leader and there will be a massive reward for you in eternity.</li><li>A good rule for rocket experimenters to follow is this: always assume that it will explode.</li><li>Let&rsquo;s light this fire one more time, Mike, and witness this great nation at its best.</li><li>It&rsquo;s just mind-blowingly awesome. I apologize, and I wish I was more articulate, but it&rsquo;s hard to be articulate when your mind&rsquo;s blown&mdash;but in a very good way.</li></ul><p>The view of the Earth from the Moon fascinated me&mdash;a small disk, 240,000 miles away. It was hard to think that that little thing held so many problems, so many frustrations. Raging nationalistic interests, famines, wars, pestilence don&rsquo;t show from that distance.</p><h3>Flight Control</h3><p>From this day forward, Flight Control will be known by two words: &lsquo;Tough&rsquo; and &lsquo;Competent.&rsquo; Tough means we are forever accountable for what we do or what we fail to do. We will never again compromise our responsibilities. Every time we walk into Mission Control we will know what we stand for. Competent means we will never take anything for granted. We will never be found short in our knowledge and in our skills. Mission Control will be perfect. When you leave this meeting today you will go to your office and the first thing you will do there is to write &lsquo;Tough and Competent&rsquo; on your blackboards. It will never be erased. Each day when you enter the room these words will remind you of the price paid by Grissom, White, and Chaffee. These words are the price of admission to the ranks of Mission Control.</p><ol><li>It&rsquo;s just mind-blowingly awesome. I apologize, and I wish I was more articulate, but it&rsquo;s hard to be articulate when your mind&rsquo;s blown&mdash;but in a very good way.</li><li>The vehicle explodes, literally explodes, off the pad. The simulator shakes you a little bit, but the actual liftoff shakes your entire body and soul.</li><li>The surface is fine and powdery. I can kick it up loosely with my toe.</li></ol><p>The vehicle explodes, literally explodes, off the pad. The simulator shakes you a little bit, but the actual liftoff shakes your entire body and soul.</p><h2 id="the-future">The Future</h2><p>I am a stranger. I come in peace. Take me to your leader and there will be a massive reward for you in eternity.</p><blockquote><p>Houston, that may have seemed like a very long final phase. The autotargeting was taking us right into a &hellip; crater, with a large number of big boulders and rocks &hellip; and it required &hellip; flying manually over the rock field to find a reasonably good area.I saw for the first time the earth&rsquo;s shape. I could easily see the shores of continents, islands, great rivers, folds of the terrain, large bodies of water. The horizon is dark blue, smoothly turning to black. . . the feelings which filled me I can express with one word&mdash;joy.</p></blockquote><p>Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.</p><div class="widget widget-info widget-important"><div class="title">Important:</div>There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world.</div>From this day forward, Flight Control will be known by two words: &lsquo;Tough&rsquo; and &lsquo;Competent.&rsquo; Tough means we are forever accountable for what we do or what we fail to do. We will never again compromise our responsibilities. Every time we walk into Mission Control we will know what we stand for. Competent means we will never take anything for granted. We will never be found short in our knowledge and in our skills. Mission Control will be perfect. When you leave this meeting today you will go to your office and the first thing you will do there is to write &lsquo;Tough and Competent&rsquo; on your blackboards. It will never be erased. Each day when you enter the room these words will remind you of the price paid by Grissom, White, and Chaffee. These words are the price of admission to the ranks of Mission Control.<h2 id="whats-next">What's Next</h2><p>It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world.</p><div class="widget widget-info"><div class="title">Note:</div>To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we&rsquo;ve ever known.</div>The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena.
