As we look around, the closest things are the most immediate to us. So rarely do human beings take on a planetary perspective. In the 1990s Carl Sagan showed the world an image of a pale blue dot. For some of us the idea presented by Sagan with the picture changed the way we think about every thing. It helped to give some of us the first inkling of a planetary perspective. It has been over a decade since Sagan’s inspirational thoughts and I’m glad to announce NASA has helped to issue a bit of a reminder. Presentations so simple yet powerful are why NASA should never stop with manned space flight nor with unmanned space flight.

Here is a picture of every one of us, and all that all of us have ever achieved in the thousands of years of human civilization (as seen from the surface of Mars). So, if anyone asks…