Ed Mitchell’s journey through space
In February 1971 Ed Mitchell, a pilot on the Apollo 14 craft, flew back to Earth after a successful moon landing. He was about to have an experience of expanded consciousness that would change his life forever. Until that point there had been nothing mystical about Ed, who had been trained as an engineer. As a boy in New Mexico planes fascinated him, and he learnt to fly at 13.
After graduating from the Carnegie Institute of Technology with a science degree in 1952 he entered the Navy and became first a pilot on active service, then a flight instructor. In 1966 he was seconded to NASA and joined the moon mission, serving on the support crew for various Apollo projects, before his appointment to the Apollo 14 mission. In 1971 he had been married for 19 years and had two children. He was 40 years old.
On the way back to Earth, the beauty of the heavens struck him in a 360 degree panorama from the cockpit, in which the Earth and the Moon performed their dance around the Sun in glittering light. Because there is no atmosphere in Space, everything looked many times brighter than it did on Earth. The home planet itself appeared as a stunning blue-white globe with vast oceans and continents teeming with life.
As he stared out of the window he experienced a state of ecstasy, in which he connected to the Earth, the Sun, the Moon and the distant stars.
“It occurred to me that the molecules of my body and the molecules of the spacecraft itself were manufactured long ago in the furnace of one of the ancient stars that burned in the heavens about me.”
Each time he looked out of the window on that three-day trip back to Earth that same overwhelming feeling of wonder gripped him, as tears flowed down his cheeks.