“You have no idea how beautiful the island Earth is when you can see the whole thing. You have no idea how extraordinary and complex and rare life is. And the only place that we know of that has life is this planet—this island. How come we don’t take care of it?"
Lieutenant Colonel Lacy Veach, NASA Astronaut
Lacy loved Hawai’i and its voyaging canoes. He saw the connection between these canoes and Hawai’i’s future. On one of his shuttle flights, a fellow crew member woke Lacy up and told him to look out the window; they were passing over the Hawaiian Islands. Lacy could see all the Islands, and he could see his whole spirit and soul there. He also saw the entire planet in one vision.
“The best place to think about the fate of our planet is right here in the islands. If we can create a model for well-being here in Hawai’i, we can make a contribution to the entire world.”
Lacy was very concerned about the limited resources of our small planet. He realized the danger of increasing population growth and that the planet does not have enough natural resources needed to support that growth.
STONE ADZE IN SPACE
On one of his shuttle flights,Lacy brought a stone adze—a tool used to build canoes in ancient times—which came from Mauna Kea, a sacred place on the Big Island of Hawai'i. This photo shows the adze floating in space, 160 miles above Earth, with Mauna Kea behind it.
Modern Technology & Ancient Wisdom
Lacy believed we need to look at the ancestral knowledge of people who lived about 2000 years ago. The adze was that time’s technology that built voyaging canoes — the spaceship of our ancestors — and we need to couple that knowledge with the best of our science and technology today. He said that the key lies in what navigates — or guides — the science and technology: