Astronaut Terry Virts brings cosmic perspective to Earth troubles

WEDNESDAY, April 26 — NASA astronaut and Space Station commander Terry Virts is a thumbs-up, can-do NASA astronaut and U.S. Army colonel in the classic “Right Stuff” vein. But he’s not a thrill-seeker.

“I drive like a grandma,” Virts said.

Virts spent over 200 consecutive days in space as commander of the International Space Station’s Expedition 43 in 2015. He brings a payload of amazing stories, a gallery of gorgeous images and a blunt message to earthbound humans at the season closer of the Wharton Center’s National Geographic Live series Sunday.

“We’re not going to solve anything by moving to Mars,” he said. “Until you solve human nature, going somewhere else is not going to fix it.”

When Virts returned to Earth after his first trip into orbit, aboard the space shuttle Endeavor in 2010, the sudden contrast in perspective gave him mental whiplash.

“I was just in outer space, seeing the planet, thinking these grand, profound thoughts,” he said. “I turn on CNN, and imagine seeing Sidney Powell, Rudy Giuliani and Mike the pillow guy after that. It was like fingernails on a chalkboard.”

Virts spent countless hours in the glassy cupola of the space station, which he helped to install, taking hundreds of thousands of photographs and many hours of video.

Seeing the Earth from orbit changed his perspective on earthbound existence. He hopes to pass along some of that equanimity to audiences in what he calls “an hour and a half trip away from Earth.”

“Your highs aren’t as high and your lows aren’t as low,” he said. “The extremes we tend to talk ourselves into are not really that extreme in the big picture.”

His best images were collected in a spectacular National Geographic coffee table book, “The View From Above,” and the IMAX film “A Beautiful Planet.” He has also written a children’s book, “The Astronaut’s Guide to Leaving the Planet.”

Virts relies on words to express his feelings about space travel, but he is resigned to the fact that language has limits.

“It’s really hard to describe weightlessness, and it’s impossible to describe the emotional impact of seeing the planet from space,” he said. “For me, it was incredibly powerful. I try and do my best, but it’s not easy.”

In the movies, space travel is all about zooming to the next frontier, but for real-life astronauts like Virts, the most devastating discovery comes from the view in the rearview mirror.

In December 1968, Apollo 8’s historic trip into lunar orbit was nearly overshadowed by astronaut Bill Anders’ photograph of the tiny blue Earth, rising like a dewdrop over the bleak lunar surface.

“That earthrise photo sparked the modern environmental movement,” Virts said. “Once they were past the moon, just to see Earth by itself — it’s pretty profound.”

Virts had the same feeling while gazing at the eggshell-thin blue line of the Earth’s atmosphere.

“Every human that’s ever been is from below that line,” he said. “I came away thinking, ‘We have Planet A and we have no Planet B.’”

Virts exchanged emails with “Star Trek” star William Shatner before Shatner went into space in October 2021, at 90 years old. After going into space for real, Shatner came to the same conclusion Virts did.

“I discovered that the beauty isn’t out there, it’s down here, with all of us,” Shatner wrote. “Leaving that behind made my connection to our tiny planet even more profound.”

“The great thing about William Shatner is that he connects with so many people,” Virts said. “I’m a huge fan.”

Shatner’s co-star, Leonard Nimoy, died in 2015, while Virts was in orbit on the ISS.

“I tweeted a picture of the Vulcan salute — ‘Live Long and Prosper,’ although people don’t know it was my hand,” Virts said. In the famous photo, the Vulcan salute hovers 220 miles above Nimoy’s hometown of Boston. One of the most striking lessons Virts learned from going into space can be summed up in the cliché, “No matter where you go, there you are.”

“That’s one of the reasons ‘Star Trek’ touches a nerve with people,” Virts said. “People love it, not just because it shows humans venturing into space, but because it tells us we have to get along with each other.”

While working alongside Russian cosmonauts at the ISS, Virts got a difficult and complicated lesson in the “getting along” part.

On November 23, 2014, a Soyuz capsule with Virts, Samantha Cristoforetti and Anton Shkaplerov took off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan for the six-hour ride to the ISS.

Virts will talk Sunday about what it’s like to train in Russia and ride in a Russian craft. The technical contrasts between the Russian and American space programs are interesting, but there’s also a complicated human side to the story.

As they shared the cosmic wonders, the mundane tasks and the ever-present dangers of space flight, Virts became close friends with his Russian crewmates.

“We had many great dinners together,” Virts said.

One of his crewmates gave him a personalized hockey jersey; another gave him a harmonica.

“Now three of the cosmonauts I flew with, and several of the cosmonauts I know, are in the Duma, promoting the war in Ukraine,” Virts said. “They’re saying Ukraine doesn’t have a right to exist, we should be able to kill Ukrainian civilians, and Russians don’t have any rights, and if you call it a war, you go to jail for 20 years.”

He recently went on FaceBook to wish one of his former crewmates a happy birthday, only to see a profile picture emblazoned with a Russian flag and ultra-nationalist messages.

“The notion that somehow flying into space improves the human condition, or the human heart, is just not true,” he concluded. “Space travel does not suddenly make people enlightened. It’s the same when you’re having serious problems with yourself. Getting divorced and moving somewhere else isn’t going to fix it. You need to fix yourself first.”