Nicole Stott is an astronaut, aquanaut, artist, mom, and now author of her first book Back to Earth:What Life In Space Taught Me About Our Home Planet – And Our Mission To Protect It (Hachette Book Group, October, 2021). She creatively combines the awe and wonder of her spaceflight experience with her artwork to inspire everyone’s appreciation of our role as crew mates here on Spaceship Earth.


Nicole is a veteran NASA Astronaut with two spaceflights and 104 days living and working in space as a crew member on both the International Space Station and the Space Shuttle. Personal highlights of her time in space include performing a spacewalk (10th woman to do so), flying the robotic arm to capture the first HTV, working with her international crew in support of the multi-disciplinary science onboard the orbiting laboratory, painting a watercolor (now on display at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum), and of course the life-changing view of our home planet out the window.

On her post-NASA mission, she is a co-founder of the Space for Art Foundation — uniting a planetary community of children through the awe and wonder of space exploration and the healing power of art.

 
 

 
 
 
KEY TAKE-AWAY

  • The space station is a mechanical life-support system designed to mimic all that Earth does naturally.  Time spent in this man-made ‘replica’ of the complex and fragile life-permitting system that is our planet and the need to constantly observe indices such as drinking water supplies, levels of CO2, oxygen supplies etc. resulted in a heightened awareness of the importance of paying attention to these vital (yet all too often) ignored phenomena on our life support system that is Earth.

  • Teamwork and shared responsibility are key to a mission’s success, and this can serve as a model for us all back on Earth. We are crew members (earthlings), not passengers – all with an active part to play.

  • Viewing Earth from space emphasized both its beauty and its fragility, protected only by micro thin blue veil of atmosphere, and enjoying its unique position in the solar system.

  • The main objective of all science carried out in space is to improve the situation back on Earth.  We owe many technical developments now so embedded in everyday life, that we forget their origins lay in space exploration.

  • The opportunity exists to take problems off planet Earth and solve them in space. For example, a space -based solar power system is now technically feasible with a price tag of ‘just’ 200 billion $.