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(gentle music) It's just such an incredibly beautiful planet.

You cannot imagine what that view from space is like.

When you look out into the vast darkness, at least so far as we know, there's nothing else out there, certainly nothing close enough with current technology for humans to live.

You just realize what a special place this is. Wake up again. When you get up there, it's just absolutely magnificent.

Then you fly over different parts of the world where there's problems.

You know, you'll pass over the Middle East and you'll look down there and you'll realize all the turmoil that's occurring there.

I understand history and all the differing feelings that people have.

But to, you know, waste our time killing each other just seems so pointless.

When you first get on orbit, you wanna look at your hometown and your home country.

And then after a while, you're just kind of looking at your continent.

And then pretty soon, you just start to feel like you're a part of the world. Houston to Discovery, how do you read? You know you're from the United States and appreciate that but you no longer feel like you're just from the United States.

It's not like looking at a map, it's just one Earth.

There's no boundaries, there's nothing dividing the countries.

If more people had that experience, then I think it would go a long way towards perhaps beginning to solve a lot of the problems we have here on Earth.

And it's absolutely amazing.

And you'll hear every astronaut, cosmonaut, typenaut, everybody feels the same way.

You just look back and think, "Man, this is one little jewel of a planet." Travel here on Earth, too, broadens your perspectives and your understanding of other people and cultures.

Even if you're one of the lucky people to live to be 105 like my grandmother, in the vastness of time and space, that isn't a lot.

So, you know, you just need to go, go and explore, because every time you go to another country or you have a different experience, it really pushes you to be better.

It just changes everything.

You appreciate each experience more and I think that's what we all love about it.

Travel makes you a better person, a better citizen of this planet of ours. (gentle music)