Thomas Pesquet on space exploration: ‘We’re all on the same boat, we have to take care of the ship’

François Picard is pleased to welcome from Toulouse in southwest France, European Space Agency astronaut Thomas Pesquet. As an astronaut who has experienced spaceflight firsthand, Pesquet sees the Artemis II mission not simply as a technological milestone, but as part of a broader human narrative of exploration and understanding. What fascinates him is not only how far we can travel from Earth, but how these journeys reshape our perception of it. Space exploration, in his view, is always a dual endeavor: it is both an intrinsic human drive to explore and a structured scientific effort to generate knowledge in environments inaccessible on Earth. Missions like Artemis II are essential stepping stones: testing systems, expanding operational boundaries, and preparing us for more ambitious goals such as lunar habitation and, eventually, human missions to Mars. At the same time, spaceflight reveals something deeply philosophical. From orbit, you see Earth as finite, fragile, and shared. This shift in perspective, what we call the “overview effect”, reinforces the responsibility we have toward our planet and each other. Ultimately, exploration is not just about going farther; it is about understanding better: both the universe and ourselves.