Published by Vintage, 2023, 136 pages

“Rotating about the earth in their spacecraft they are so together, and so alone, that even their thoughts, their internal mythologies, at times convene. Sometimes they dream the same dreams—of fractals and blue spheres and familiar faces engulfed in the dark, and of the bright energetic black of space that slams their senses. Raw space is a panther, feral and primal; they dream it stalking through their quarters.”

Six humans in space: four men and two women, Roman and Anton (Russian), Shaun (American), Nell (British), Chie (Japanese) and Pietro (Italian). They will be in the spacecraft for nine months, with just four inches of titanium separating them from the vastness of space. Nine months of living in close quarters with five others, of floating without gravity, and nine months of seeing the earth in a way the rest of us never will.

Nothing much happens—Chie’s mother dies, and a typhoon builds. The astronauts go about their day, observing, recording, exercising, eating; you live with them and are privy to their thoughts. Pietro worries about a boy in the Philippines he and his wife met—the country will the first one to be hit by the typhoon. Nell wonders how Shaun can still believe in God when he can see the emptiness of space. Chie makes endless lists of things. They all keep an eye on the typhoon, monitoring and reporting on its progress.

They miss home and their loved ones, but they also want to be exactly where they are. There comes a point when they do not want to leave, where everything about their temporary home makes them happy: “it isn’t so much that they don’t want to go home but that home is an idea that has imploded—grown so big, so distended and full, that it’s caved in on itself.”

The chapters list the orbits, and we go through the days with them, seeing the continents pass, mornings dawn and nights fall. It doesn’t sound like much, but this is an absorbing book that builds its world through a lot of detail. I am amazed how Samantha Harvey is able to visualize, not only the sight of the earth from space, but also the way the astronauts live and the effects of space travel on their bodies. She hasn’t been into space, but it feels like she has, as if she knows exactly what it feels like to be on a spaceship. 

For one, time is not the same in space as it is on earth. The rising and setting of the sun has no meaning in terms of keeping time: during a 24-hour period, the astronauts see several sunrises and sunsets. Harvey describes the earth so beautifully: Africa in the morning “chiming with light”, Cuba “pink with morning”, Albania and Montenegro “velvet soft with mountain”. Night falling on Africa: “Blue becomes mauve becomes indigo becomes black, and night-time downs southern Africa in one.”

Seeing the earth at this distance brings home not only its beauty but also how precious it is. The astronauts are warned that there will be dissonance—they will be exposed to this “seamless earth” without borders, the continents melting into one another, with no signs of war or destruction. But they will also be aware that there are borders and war and devastation. Their moods will swing between exhilaration and depression, between anger and hope, and despair.

The writing, with its rhythms, is almost meditative. In this luminous book, Harvey drives home the point that the earth is the most beautiful thing we have, our home—our only home, and it is worth protecting. Something humans tend to forget as they fight their petty wars and find ways of destroying it.