Branch Chief Margarita Sampson

"There's this thing called the overview effect: Space has this effect on people that you could probably call almost spiritual. Everyone returns from spaceflight changed in one way or another. … They see the Earth from space, and that's how they continue to see it after flight.

"… The more people travel to space and have the experience of seeing the Earth, the less chance of wars and conflict and separation we have. Life becomes more hopeful.

"I read ['The Last Man on the Moon'] by Gene Cernan, and he was describing how he felt looking at the Earth from the surface of the Moon. I was like, 'Yeah, there's something there.'… I feel like we go to space not to learn more about space but to learn more about ourselves."

- Margarita Sampson, Branch Chief, NASA's Johnson Space Center

Image Credit: NASA / William Stafford
Interviewer: NASA / Michelle Zajac

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