Minutes before the take-off of a Soyuz TMA-19M rocket carrier that launched three new crew members, Russia's Yuri Malenchenko, NASA's Timothy Kopra and ESA's Timothy Peake, to the International Space Station (ISS) from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, Gerst gave an interview to RT.
"If we see the Earth from the outside, we realize how important it is to protect it; how thin the atmosphere is; how fragile it is," Gerst told RT.
From space it is shockingly visible how fragile our eco- and climate systems are. #COP21 https://t.co/T8mnduhgBy pic.twitter.com/NfOmdA1vlC
— Alexander Gerst (@Astro_Alex) 9 декабря 2015
If people could fly to space and see the planet with their own eyes from there, their relationship with the Earth would change and they'd start treating it differently in a more careful manner, said the British astronaut, who spent 165 days at the ISS in 2004.
"That's something we don't realize when we're here [on the ground] because it all seems infinite and all resources seem undepletable," Gerst explained.
According to the astronaut, space teaches people to look at things on Earth from a different angle and become more aware of things we consider commonplace and often ignore. Gerst said he missed things, like running in the forest and sleeping on his bed, as one can't completely relax when floating in space.
"When you're in space you always miss a few things: mainly, the things that you had before and then you suddenly don't have them," Gerst said, as cited by RT.
The British astronaut also emphasized that the ISS is a "great symbol" of international cooperation between countries which often pursue conflicting political objectives on Earth.
