Where is home?
Is it where you were born?
Where you were raised?
Or where you are now?
Is it somewhere you live?
Somewhere you left?
Somewhere that shaped you?
If you really wanna know,
you need to leave them all behind.
Someone who knows that it's like to really leave home,
is Peggy Whitson,
NASA's most experienced astronaut.
Not that you'd know it if you ever met her.
Well I hate talking about the records,
but I do have few.
That folks is the understatement of the year.
How about we start with
most time in space for any US astronaut.
Which is 665 days.
Think about that for a second,
that's a round trip to Mars.
Then there's the longest single space flight,
for any woman in the world.
Oh, that's right, yeah.
And that's just for starters.
Ten space walks,
first female Commander,
and I can't remember the other,
oh, I know oldest astronaut,
female astronaut,
not a record I was looking for.
The press seemed to point that one out a lot.
Not bad for a farm girl from Iowa!
Eight astronauts,
Chris,
Nicole,
Jeff,
May,
Jerry,
Mike,
Leland,
and then,
there's Peggy.
Each one of them is different,
they come from different places,
they have different stories to tell,
but they were all changed by one thing...
Going into space.
It's called the Overview Effect,
and if you could see what they've seen,
you'd feel it too.
Most of us leave home every day.
We go to work,
without a second thought.
But just imagine if your work place,
overlooks the planet
then that morning commute
becomes a little bit more challenging.
We launch from Baikonur, Kazakhstan.
It was actually the same launch pad
that Yuri Gagarin launched from.
It's a fast trip to get to space.
Better than any car you've ever been in,
better than any acceleration you've ever experienced.
It feels good to be going fast.
Eight and a half minutes after
leaving the launchpad we are in orbit.
The international space station
is 250 miles above the planet.
But it is a million miles away
from the place Peggy first called home.
Growing up on a farm I think was actually a really
good experience for me,
it taught me a lot of
dedication and hard work.
She says she'd like to go to Mars.
My parents have lived on the same farm
for fifty, almost sixty years.
My mom was incredibly supportive.
At one time I was telling my sister I wanted to
be a pilot and learn to fly and she's like,
'You can't be a pilot', you can only be a stewardess.'
and my mom told her,
'No, you can be anything you want to be!'
I think there's two Peggy's,
the one that comes here
and the one that goes there are different people.
An astronaut will have trained for at least
three years for a mission.
Every moment in space is scheduled
with experiments to run and tasks to complete.
But the first thing they wanna do
is exactly what we do when we go somewhere new,
check out the view.
Going into space is like I live my whole life
in a semi-dark room and somebody flipped on the lights.
The earth just seems to glow,
it's so beautiful.
When I first went to space,
the first thing I wanted to do
was pop off my helmet,
unstrap out of my chair,
float up weightless,
and go to the window and see the world.
What we see with our eyes,
what we then I think feel
through our heart says your experiencing it is,
it's beyond imagination.
It is just so stunningly beautiful,
it almost makes you, you,
you wanna find new words to describe
the emotion that you're feeling
because it affects you so powerfully.
This is something that human eyes are not supposed to see.
Looking out the window
may not be the highest mission priority...
but it has a lasting impact on all astronauts.
It changes how they think about where they're from.
The town closest to my parents farm,
is Beaconsfield, Iowa.
When I was growing up it had like 32 people in it
and I think it's down to eleven'ish now,
so it's a pretty small town.
Beaconsfield maybe the smallest town in Iowa,
but it's a place full of amazing stories,
amazing transformations.
Growing up in Iowa,
there's all kinds of life around...
and when somebody says the word 'butterfly'
you always think of the Monarch butterfly
because it's the most distinctive one,
that I saw growing up.
This one's a pretty good one.
It's big!
They feel like soft and gooey at the same time.
I know!
The spring and summer there are lots of caterpillars,
it's easy to find them
because they're only on the milkweed.
It's always interesting to see
the caterpillars crawling around
and recognize that someday that's gonna become
a butterfly.
You like to move around a lot don't you.
We all know that caterpillars turn into butterflies...
but does it make it any less wondrous?
It's as extraordinary as a farm girl from Iowa
transforming into an astronaut.
The Monarch butterfly's caterpillar
is nature's shape shifter supreme.
When the caterpillar is inside the chrysalis
it dissolves and it turns into goo...
And then the goo turns into a butterfly.
Caterpillars don't know much of the world
beyond a milkweed plant
but once a butterfly
it's cleared for take off.
And from up high,
it gains a new perspective on the world.
Astronauts change when they leave earth.
They undergo a metamorphosis.
Home is no longer a town,
it's something much bigger.
I think the opportunity to kind of
live in space,
has allowed me to
look at things a little bit differently.
It really opens up a new perspective.
I don't think about the city I live in,
or where I'm from, I think about home
and home is our whole planet or whole earth,
it is one home for all of us.
As I've grown up and gone to college,
and gone to graduate school,
home has expanded from Iowa to Texas,
to the United States,
and since being in space,
home is actually planet Earth!
Look!
Here she comes!
There she is.
17,500 miles an hour,
fast moving star.
That's your daughter up there, isn't it?
There's lot of stars out there tonight
but she's the only one that's moving.
Bye Peggy,
hurry home.
Astronauts don't spend all their free time
at the window looking at earth,
after all they're explorers,
so it's only natural for them to turn the other way
towards the far reaches of space.
They set their sights on what's out there.
Thing is, that big window on the ISS
only points one way,
down to earth.
To see the cosmos,
you have to step outside!
You'd think when you're in space,
you'd have lots of it,
you've probably got more room in your back yard,
than the astronauts have on the ISS.
It is cramped up there.
You don't really experience space,
until you walk in it!
Going for a walk it's not a trivial process,
it takes a lot of work and preparation.
But, everyone wants to do it
because oh my gosh the view is phenomenal!
On a spacewalk it's just you!
Floating!
No up, no down.
Turn one way a 250 mile drop back to earth,
the other an endless expanse of unblinking stars.
The main thing astronauts remember though,
is not the stars but the black.
Looking into that void,
makes astronauts ask the same question,
'Is there anybody out there?'
To say that there's no life elsewhere in the universe
is a real stretch.
You know mathematics doesn't lie,
probability doesn't lie,
and when you look at these numbers
surely there has to be some other life out there.
There's got to be other life out there, there has to be.
It's just a matter of whether we can find it or not.
To find out if we have neighbours,
you need a telescope,
and I'm talking big,
really big!
This dish is a giant ear,
listening to radio waves coming from deep space.
There are literally
billions of strange rocks out there,
but so far not a whisper from any of them.
Nada!
So where is everybody?
Well...
it's about 250 miles from earth,
to the international space station,
250,000 miles to the moon.
Long way right?
Baby steps!
Saturn,
700 million miles.
Edge of the solar system,
over nine trillion.
Our nearest star,
four and a quarter light years.
Aboard our fastest spacecraft
it will take
17,000 years to get there
and that's just our next-door neighbour!
Travelling beyond,
through our galaxy to the edge of the Milky Way,
we're talking 25,000 light years!
And our galaxy is just one of trillions!
So life elsewhere,
might just be a very, very long way away...
And there's another thing,
any aliens out there might not be able to say 'hello'
because they might not have a mouth,
or even a brain.
These jellyfish have found a way
to capture energy from sunlight.
If life exists elsewhere,
it will need energy,
probably from a sun,
and water just like on earth.
But like these jellyfish,
most creatures on our planet are not intelligent,
they never ask to phone home!
There's probably life out there in the universe,
but to find intelligent life,
those odds go way, way, way down.
We don't know for sure that we're alone,
but psychologically, spiritually, culturally,
we definitely are alone.
As far as we know we're the only ones like us.
Space is almost entirely nothing.
Adrift in that empty void,
it's easy to feel completely
and utterly alone.
That's when earth
starts to look really good.
Down here we see infinite blue skies
and life all around us.
For astronauts it's different.
Everywhere they look is barren,
life exists in just a single, solitary oasis.
The more they look at it,
the more they appreciate the earth.
They begin to understand
the shear interconnectedness
of the natural world.
The earth begins to reveal patterns,
connections, seasons, systems and cycles.
It really is enlightening to me how complex
even a little butterfly is.
The Monarch butterflies are special because they travel
really long ways.
The Monarch's don't like winter in Iowa,
they migrate South.
The butterflies they go all the way to Mexico.
Like, I don't know where to go
if I were to go to Mexico,
like how do they get there?
It's like a mystery!
After more than 2,000 miles,
they've almost reached their winter home
and there's a welcome party
waiting to greet them.
Okay, so this may just be co-incidental
but the arrival of the Monarchs
has come at the same time as the Day of Dead for so long,
it's become part of the culture.
It's not just butterflies from Iowa that travel here,
they're joined by immigrants from across the mid-west
and as far north as Canada,
all heading for refuge,
in the forests of central Mexico.
It's one of the greatest homecomings on earth!
Even though every Monarch here,
has another home far away,
each one started life on a milkweed,
some place like Beaconsfield, Iowa.
It's hard to know where these Monarchs belong,
Iowa,
Mexico,
on the wing,
or all of those?
These butterflies
show that the earth has no borders.
Everything is interconnected.
It turns out what happens in Vegas
doesn't stay in Vegas!
It's linked to the rest of the planet.
And on a world where everything is connected,
the smallest actions can have global consequences.
Take the plastic bottles we throw away.
Well, they might just end up
on someone else's doorstep.
This Hermit crab is looking for a new home.
House hunting is a especially hard,
when someone's trashed your neighbourhood.
Millions of tons of plastic
end up in our oceans each year.
But one guy's trash is another guy's treasure!
Hermit crabs have been found living in garbage
across the planet,
after all,
a plastic house can last a long time.
But not every creature can adapt like the Hermit crab.
As we change our planet,
most life on earth struggles to keep up.
Right now there's seven and a half billion of us
turning the lights on and
and flushing the toilet and driving our cars
and turning up the heat in our house
and none of that comes for free.
When you look at the earth from space,
and you realize the finiteness of our planet,
the thinness of our atmosphere,
it's obvious that the earth,
like any environmental system
has a limited carrying capacity.
The greatest threat to our planet, I think we are
probably the potential greatest threat to our planet.
But there's hope for us all,
because there's something else that's changed too,
something that could help save our precious home!
Alright, we're gonna roll.
Christmas 1968,
an astronaut took this photograph.
It went viral when that wasn't such an easy thing to do
because it was the first time we'd ever seen
a colour portrait of our planet.
Because little planet Earth
photo bombing the moon.
It was a pretty deal,
it showed us how beautiful our world is,
turns out photos don't do it justice.
When we look out the window
and we see the beautiful oceans,
beautiful land masses,
the thin layer of atmosphere
that protects the Earth,
it just really gives you a sense of
how special this place is where we live.
It's an interesting coincidence
that at this time in history,
when our population has gotten so big,
that we're starting to make global changes to the planet,
it's also the time that we've invented space flight
which allows us to see the whole world as one place.
Seeing earth from space,
made me think of myself
and everybody else that I share the planet with,
as Earthlings.
All over the world,
people love to party
and in India,
every Spring,
people celebrate Mother Earth's new life,
in colours.
One of the biggest changes I noticed within myself
as a result of flying in space
was that the difference between us and them,
disappeared.
Somehow going around the world in 92 minutes,
not just once but over and over and over again,
turned the entire world into one shared place.
I think it's a perspective that's seeps into astronauts.
I think it's a perspective that's,
that's kind of good for everybody.
I truly believe that if more people could have
the opportunity to see the planet from space,
looking at the rich colours, looking at the fact
that there are no borders separating us,
we could see that we are truly
all connected as human beings.
Ever been on a trip and seen something new?
Something incredibly beautiful
or something that changed the way
you think about things.
Now imagine that trip was to space.
You've seen something
only a very few people have ever seen.
Astronauts need to tell someone,
anyone, everyone!
Soon they're ready to go back down,
but it's actually bitter sweet.
I mean they're going back to the place
that made them but
leaving the place that shaped them.
Last day in space.
After 665 total days over three different expeditions.
Quite amazing to think that I'd lived up there,
just under two years of my life,
pretty amazing.
It was hard to leave,
because I knew I wouldn't be coming back.
Jeepers!
But I was so excited about going back home and,
and being back on earth,
having you know,
wind and smelling the air and
just being on earth.
But coming home is not easy.
Mother Earth doesn't exactly
welcome you back with open arms!
We land in Kazakhstan,
there's not many people around
so there's no risk of us
damaging or hurting anybody during a re-entry.
We have manner, copy.
The earth's atmosphere is a protective shield
around our planet,
it keeps our radiation.
It keeps our rocks and meteorites,
but it also keeps out astronauts,
suddenly we're on the other side of that protective body
and we are essentially an invader.
During re-entry the window seat is...
it's interesting.
Flying the Russian Soyuz,
is a little bit like, maybe, flying a meteorite home.
You can look out and see the orange and purple flames
of 3,000 degrees, they are this far from you.
That's pretty frickin' scary.
You're going 17,000 miles an hour,
eight kilometres a second,
and somehow, you have to get rid of all of that speed,
you have to apply the brakes.
Re-entry is about the most dangerous thing
an astronaut will ever do.
It's an extremely complex and dangerous process
to return home.
You have to control your spaceship,
so you can end up at the landing point,
where everybody's waiting for you.
The search and rescue team doesn't know
exactly where Peggy will fall back to earth,
but one things for certain,
gravity will eventually bring her home.
The Russian's never design their vehicle
to land on the water
so it's always been a land landing for them
and it works, it's abrupt but it works.
Once we get inside the atmosphere,
about five miles above the planet,
a parachute will open.
Okay, we're good now.
Most people compare it to a car crash,
I would compare it to maybe two car crashes.
When we hit the ground,
and you feel everything settle,
that was when I knew we were home again.
Peggie, welcome back.
It's incredibly hard to describe
how heavy everything feels
in those first few minutes.
Just moving your arm this much is just like,
it has to be a huge conscious effort
to move your arm at all
so you're like, 'Wow, space was good!'
Gravity sucks!
Peggy hasn't just looked at space or visited it,
she's lived there,
so is her home back in Iowa?
Or the whole earth?
Or is it up on the ISS?
Truth is,
like the Monarch,
it's all of them!
I'm not sure whether I feel more like an Earthling,
or a space woman.
I think being a space woman's a lot more fun.
When I got home from space,
after getting out of my suit,
then to have a meal,
without the food floating away from you,
and being able to pet your dog
and talk to your parents face to face...
it made me feel so much more connected to the planet.
You know after that space experience,
being back on the planet I think
what really sky rocketed me is just gratitude.
You know how good we have it on the earth.
I couldn't wait to feel what a breeze would be like again.
You, you know what the smell of grass
was gonna you know, smell like again.
It's the smell of earth, the smell of home,
the smells of the natural world.
It's over powering, it's kind of overwhelming.
Just because you physically leave the surface of the earth,
does not mean you leave the earth,
because the earth is part of you.
I think we're pretty special.
Yeah, we might be small in comparison
to the rest of that universe,
but I dare anybody from any other planet
to come up with a place as nice as ours,
I think we definitely have the nicest home on the block!
This is our home, the earth it's,
it's the only place we've got,
it, it is one strange rock
because it's ours and we are here and
we don't know if any other place in the universe,
yet, that can support life.
We're very lucky to have it as our home.
There's no place like home!
There is no place like home!
There's definitely no place like home!
For thousands of years,
maybe tens of thousands
we've looked up and asked questions.
Now for the first time in history,
we have the opportunity to look down,
the questions are different
and so are the answers.
We can now literally see how fortunate we are
to call this place home,
it's complex,
calibrated,
inter-connected...
fine-tuned but fragile.
Perspective is everything.
From down here earth is simply our home.
From up there,
it is one strange rock.
I miss space!
What did you say?
You can ask me when I'm 95,
'Do I wanna go back.'
I love it!
The answer would absolutely be yes!
I wanna go back!
Don't tell my wife!
Don't put that on television!