Neil deGrasse Tyson delivered the commencement address at Rice University's 100th anniversary celebration — a particularly meaningful venue, as it was at Rice Stadium that President Kennedy delivered his famous 'We choose to go to the Moon' speech in 1962, and Rice donated the land that became Johnson Space Center. Tyson recounted how the Apollo 8 mission in December 1968 — the first to leave Earth orbit and travel to the Moon — produced the iconic 'Earthrise' photograph showing our planet rising over the lunar surface. He noted that no previous representation of Earth had ever included clouds, because no one had thought to consider the atmosphere as part of Earth itself. Within five years of that photo, the EPA was founded, the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts were passed, Earth Day was created, DDT was banned, and Doctors Without Borders was established. The cosmic perspective changed how humanity saw itself.