It’s been 64 years since John Glenn’s historic flight in the Mercury program’s Friendship 7. A little less than a year before, Russian cosmonaut, Uri Gargarin, made his historic foray into space and around the globe.

April 12, 1961, celebrated the first time a human orbited Earth. February 20, 1962, marked the first time an American would see Earth from space as Glenn circled the world three times before splashing down after nearly five hours, logging a huge win for NASA in the space race of the 1960’s.

Project Mercury’s success would set the stage for the Gemini and Apollo programs which would ultimately land men on the Moon in 1969 and safely bring them home. Michael Collins, of Apollo 11, looking back towards Earth from his orbit around the Moon, would note how tiny, beautiful, and fragile our home appeared. Apollo 17’s Blue Marble photograph became iconic in society’s vision of protecting Earth.

From the time the International Space Station was built, and inhabited, human eyes have had a continuous cosmic view of our planet. The unifying emotional reaction of seeing Earth from space has been termed, The Overview Effect. Astronauts describe a transformative awe in seeing the solitary shining fragility of Earth. John Glenn would experience this again as he flew to space one more time in 1998 on the space shuttle, Discovery.