Many astronauts describe a quiet realization when they look down at Earth from orbit — that the borders and political lines we treat as permanent are invisible from above

Many astronauts describe a quiet realization when they look down at Earth from orbit — that the borders and political lines we treat as permanent are invisible from above

NASA astronaut Christina Koch, a NASA astronaut selected for the Artemis II crew, has perhaps the cleanest description of what she sees from the cupola of the International Space Station. “You don’t see borders, you don’t see religious lines, you don’t see political boundaries. All you see is Earth and you see that we are way more alike than we are different.” That is her line, on a NASA page from late 2025, and it is hard to read it without slo…