If you’re familiar with David Bowie’s Space Oddity, you’ll remember the lone astronaut drifting in orbit, gazing out at the stars and down at Earth below. When Space Oddity was released in July 1969, the world was on the brink of a transformation, swept up in the thrill of the space race. Just a few years earlier, the Soviets had sent Yuri Gagarin into space, and now, in the very month Bowie’s song debuted, the world watched as the first images of the moon landing beamed back to Earth.
It was a time of incredible firsts and new perspectives. For the first time, we looked down on our world from above, gaining a view that changed everything. Through photographs and broadcasts, we saw our planet: a small, fragile sphere in the vast dark.
Astronauts who traveled into space came back changed, their vision of Earth—and their understanding of our place in the universe—were forever transformed.
"This is Major Tom to ground control,
I'm stepping through the door,
And I'm floating in a most peculiar way,
And the stars look very different today."
Nearly everyone who’s seen Earth from space comes back with a new understanding. Some feel a deep sense of hope and a desire to take care of the world and everyone in it. Others, like William Shatner, find something darker—a vast emptiness, a sense of isolation, and the depth of the unknown. And some see humanity as one, free from borders, war, or hate.
There’s a term for this kind of shift called The Overview Effect. It’s a perspective shift that only a select few experience firsthand.
At Major Tom, we drew inspiration from that very shift. Our mission is to give our partners that same clarity, the sense of purpose that comes from creating order from chaos. We guide them through their own “door”—into a fresh perspective, a new way of seeing—until suddenly, the stars start to look different.
We are Major Tom, and we find clarity in chaos.
