• Hannah Witton, a sex education YouTuber, quit her popular channel a year ago.
• She cited burnout and becoming a mother as reasons for her shift.
• She now helps creators navigate career changes, focusing on those who have hit a content wall.

Last December, Hannah Witton decided 12 years with her enormously popular YouTube channel, where she became a beacon of knowledge for sex education, was enough.

Now, she wants to be the crisis clinic for struggling creators, using her 12 years of experience to help other YouTubers figure out their next steps.

Witton stepped away from her channel with over a decade's worth of content on sexual health, with a particular focus on sexuality with a disability.

Witton was one of a wave of long-standing YouTubers who left the channels on which they built their businesses over the past year, including MatPat of The Game Theorists and Tom Scott, who ended his famed "Things You Might Not Know" series.

They all did so for different reasons, but burnout and a sense they had hit a wall was a common thread in their decisions.

Witton told Business Insider that having a baby was the biggest factor for her. She had been on the content hamster wheel for so long, beholden to the ever-changing YouTube algorithm, that she didn't realize she was running on empty.

But being raised a feminist, she previously thought becoming a mom wouldn't change her career at all.

"Then when it actually happens, it's like, oh, wait, it's totally normal for this to completely rewire you," she told BI. "Not just physically and mentally, but actually logistically — your circumstances changing and the impact it has on your time, your energy, your resources, and all of that."

So, Hannah retired her channel and her Doing It Podcast, unsure of exactly what was next, but certain of one thing: she was taking a break.

"I was like, oh, I don't have to do that anymore," she said. "It was a risk I was willing to take."

One year after retirement

Witton started making content in 2013 and evolved as a dominant voice in the sex and relationships space, with a particular focus on enjoying sexuality while living with a chronic condition.

Witton herself has been diagnosed with ulcerative colitis, a chronic autoimmune illness where her digestive system gets regularly inflamed and has a stoma bag — an external pouch that takes on the role of the colon.

One year on from retirement, Witton has leaned into her Patreon. She has a second YouTube channel which she uploads to occasionally and when she feels like it, but it's not a priority in terms of income and career moves.

"Growth isn't one of my main goals at the moment," Witton said. "I'm really judging the success of videos on my enjoyment of it, and then the comment section, and just if other people enjoyed it too."

Witton said her finances did take a hit initially, but in the long term, it worked out. Struggling to keep up with the content mill meant Witton was draining her bank account by hiring freelancers and paying her team.

"I did cut down on a lot of my overheads at the end of last year because, of course, I also removed a big part of my income," Witton said. "But for the most part, I have been a lot financially healthier this year."

The YouTuber crisis clinic

After retirement, Witton organically started having conversations with many other creators about what they wanted to do next. This turned into a business in itself.

"I originally went in being like, I'm going to be a project manager," Witton said. "But it's more that I come in as a consultant or a coach, and then the rest is kind of up to them to execute."

For example, Witton coached a pregnant creator for a few months before her maternity leave, helping her figure out her priorities and what kind of schedule she could realistically keep.

Helping creators launch their Patreon pages is a big part of this process, Witton said, as she's been on there for 10 years and knows how it works inside out.

"It's been really fun and rewarding to use all of this insight and knowledge and experience that I have," Witton said. "It's reassuring for me as well that I do know stuff. I haven't just been talking to a camera — I've been building up all of these skills."

While Witton sees the value she could bring to newer creators, she finds working with more established ones more interesting.

"I want the creator who's going through a crisis," she said. "I want the creator who's been doing it six years and is like, what am I doing in my life?"

That's what gets her excited, she said — helping creators who are burned out, stressed, and confused about the future figure out their next steps.

"A lot of creators are getting to the age where they may be having children or different life responsibilities, or just generally having a different pace of life," Witton said. "It's the life cycle of a creator."

It's hard to turn off the creator voice in her head that tells her she should be doing more, so Witton has to listen to her own advice and not let the hamster wheel take her away again.

She would like a silver play button for her second channel one day, but right now, her priority is creators in need.

"The clinic is open," Witton said. "You can come to me when you're having your existential crisis."

• I'm 67 and am still working 5 days a week. Many of my friends have retired, but I can't afford to.
• I regret not investing in a pension offered to me earlier in life.
• Now I'm planning to move away from my grandchild so I can work less and enjoy a lower cost of living.

I am 67 years old and when people ask me if I've retired yet, my knee jerk response is, "No I haven't! What's retirement?"

I am a Psychologist, was formerly a teacher, and have worked and paid taxes all my life. I am well paid for the work that I do. I have paid my mortgage off and have no outstanding debts. In spite of this, I am now faced with the prospect of living on a state pension, which is just not possible, continuing to work or, as I have now decided, selling up and moving 200 miles away from my only granddaughter so I can live in a location where house prices are lower and I can afford to work less.

This wasn't the plan

It didn't start out this way. I once imagined that somehow I would make such a success of my life that I would be able to retire at 50 or younger, enjoying being a lady that lunches, going on cruises, and doing the odd spot of volunteer work. But I didn't actually have a plan.

I started my working life as a teacher, got married at 30 then found myself to be a lone parent when my children were 2 and 5, with no family support. I was not well advised and ended up with the children, the mortgage, no pension, and an ex-husband who tried his best not to pay anything at all.

Around that time I decided I needed a career change, and started to train as a Psychologist, a long and very expensive process. I'm not quite sure how I did it, but I managed to work, study, and raise children — all on my own.

I was proud of what I accomplished, but had nothing at all in the way of savings; life was a constant struggle to make ends meet. I still did what I could and at 40 I started to pay £100 (about $127 USD) a month into a private pension. Now I know that I was badly advised and if I were to take it, this would only pay me around £1,500 (about $1,905 USD) per year —nowhere near what I would need to live on.

The thing I never did with my money still haunts me

The obvious question is, why didn't I pay into the teacher's pension offered to me earlier in my career? Why indeed.

Not taking advantage of this is one of my greatest regrets. But when I was in my early 20s we didn't have any financial education. Even the teachers' unions didn't send out advice about pensions. To me, it just seemed like a large monthly outgoing from an already meagre salary, so I opted out and didn't give it another thought. Now I know that money would have made a big difference. Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

I needed to make some tough decisions

I realized around 5 years ago that the only way I could even contemplate retirement would be to downsize and move to a cheaper area in order to have a reasonably substantial nest egg to help me eke out my twilight years. Most of the advice I have read claims that to have a comfortable retirement where I live, one needs a gross annual income of around £40,000 (around $50,802 USD). I have calculated that with my state pension, bits and pieces for my writing, and interest on the surplus when I move, to reach that £40,000 I will still need to work at least one day a week. Not perfect, but a lot better than the five days I have been working.

With this in mind, I put my house on the market. Then my eldest daughter, who lives nearby, announced that she was pregnant. Fantastic as that was, I could no longer imagine moving away, so I carried on working five days.

I'm now more than a year past the typical retirement age and most of my friends seem to be enjoying a fruitful, active retirement. Meanwhile, I'm becoming more and more exhausted, suffering from frequent low-level infections, and becoming increasingly resentful.

Change is coming

Now, my house is back on the market. I will be moving to Derbyshire, where my younger daughter lives and where house prices are around half of those where I live now.

It will be a massive wrench, especially leaving my granddaughter, but I need to do it while I'm still fit and healthy. I have lived in my current house for 38 years and expected to leave it in a box. I've worked out a solution, although not ideal. I will have enough income to work one day a week, more time to focus on my passions, I'll be able to travel and get involved in the local community and still be able to visit my granddaughter every 6 weeks or so.

My advice to young people now? However distant it seems, don't leave it to chance. Make a retirement plan and start paying as much as you can into a good pension. The years fly by and it will be here before you know it.

• 2024 was a big year for artificial intelligence. 2025 could be even bigger.
• Business Insider spoke to over a dozen key figures in the industry about AI's future.
• Here's what they had to say.

If 2024 is the year companies started adopting AI, then 2025 could be the year they start tailoring it to fit their needs.

Some say AI will become so integrated into our lives we won't even notice it's there.

"Like the internet or electricity, AI will become an invisible driver of outcomes, not a selling point," Tom Biegala, cofounder of Bison Ventures, a venture firm focused on frontier technology, told Business Insider by email.

And as companies incorporate the technology into their businesses, they'll likely need to focus more on managing it responsibly.

"In 2025 we expect more enterprise companies will recognize that investing in AI governance is just as important as adopting AI itself," Navrina Singh, founder of Credo AI, an AI governance platform, said.

Business Insider spoke with 13 key figures in tech — from startup founders to investors — for their best guesses on what to expect from AI in 2025.

Investment will continue to soar

"The AI hype cycle may stabilize, but AI investments will soar," Immad Akhund, the CEO of Mercury, which offers banking services to startups, told BI by email.

He believes the sustained interest in AI comes as companies move from experimenting to using it in real-world areas like customer service, sales, and finance.

"Companies will use AI to boost productivity — especially in back-office tasks and document management — helping small teams scale quickly and operate more efficiently," he said.

Under the Trump Administration, the new leadership at the Federal Trade Commission might foster a more favorable climate for mergers, acquisitions, and IPOs in the AI industry.

"I expect M&A to increase by at least 35% next year," Tomasz Tunguz, founder of Theory Ventures, a venture capital firm, told BI. "The top 10 most active acquirers in the software world are falling off a cliff in terms of activity, which requires meaningfully the IPO market to roar open with a combination of AI and other software companies."

The competition will get fierce

Don't be surprised if a leading company takes a hit because of AI.

"At least one major, globally recognized company will fail or significantly downsize due to an inability to compete with one or more AI-native startups. Rapid innovation cycles and the horizontal application of AI will render slow movers obsolete," Stefan Weitz, CEO and cofounder of HumanX, a leading AI conference, told BI.

He believes the tech's threat will extend to the global stage, requiring major powers to regulate AI to maintain their competitive edge.

"As we are already seeing with the US and China regulating or blocking core AI technologies, nations or corporations will experience major geopolitical conflicts over AI algorithms and data, with some countries banning or nationalizing key AI technologies to maintain control over economic and political power," he wrote.

That said, the United States and China are already working together to mitigate the existential threat AI poses to humanity. In November, at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit, President Joe Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping agreed that humans, not AI, should make decisions regarding the use of nuclear technology.

The lines between humans and AI will not be obvious

The idea of humans and autonomous agents working together might soon move beyond the realm of science fiction. That means we'll also need to start drafting rules to govern these interactions.

"Synthetic virtual people indistinguishable from real humans will enter the workforce, even if in limited ways, leading to debates about employment rights and creating a push for 'AI citizenship' to define their societal roles and limitations," Weitz said.

Some predict that the distinction between human-created and AI-generated content will also become increasingly unclear.

"Generative media will hit the mainstream in a big way and will be as much talked about as LLMs in 2024," Steve Jang, founder and managing partner of Kindred Ventures, an early-stage venture firm, told BI. "Generative audio and images are getting better due to more advanced models, and we'll start to see adoption spike across both consumer and enterprise."

Specialization. Specialization. Specialization.

Business leaders told BI that next year will be about custom-fitting AI technology to suit specific needs.

"In 2025, the AI hype cycle will give way to the rise of domain-specific, specialized AI and robotics," Biegala said. "Products will be faster and more efficient while delivering immediate, tangible value compared to general-purpose solutions. This shift will mark the beginning of real, transformative economic impact of AI."

The focus on customization also extends to how we search for information online, with chatbots replacing search engines like Google.

"In 2025, search will no longer be synonymous with a single brand; instead, users will turn to multiple platforms for specific types of queries. Some may rely on AI-powered chatbots for conversational answers, others on domain-specific engines for technical or industry-specific expertise, and still others on visual or voice-based tools for multimedia queries," Dominik Mazur, CEO and cofounder of IAsk, an AI search engine, told BI. "This diversification will create a competitive environment where specialized players and niche solutions coexist with larger generalist platforms, leading to greater innovation and choice for users."

Over the past year, AI leaders have been promoting the value of smaller AI models that can address a company's specific needs better than large-scale foundation models. "There's a lot of pressure on making smaller, more efficient models, smarter via data and algorithms, methods, rather than just scaling up due to market forces," Aidan Gomez, the founder and CEO of Cohere, an enterprise AI startup, previously told BI.

The pressure is rising as the value of building models simply based on computing power decreases.

"The days of using a GPU to brute force compute to build models and applications will be in the rearview mirror," Biegala said.

Companies may also use customizable AI tools more, possibly replacing software-as-a-service applications.

"AI tools are tearing down the moat of SaaS applications as tools that can only be bought vs built, prompting enterprises — from Amazon to ambitious startups — to replace expensive SaaS apps that don't quite totally fit the need with lightweight custom-fit solutions integrated into your stack," David Hsu, founder of Retool, a low code platform for developers, told BI.

Regulation takes priority

With more responsibility comes more risk. Companies are going to start getting serious about regulation.

"I expect to see more voluntary commitments and actions to responsible AI. I think there will be a push to establish guardrails similar to what happened for frontier models, now discussed for AI agents and autonomous AI," Singh said. "Also, I do see a world where we will see the first penalties for noncompliance with AI-specific laws, which will set a global precedent, forcing businesses to prioritize governance or face steep consequences."

Singh, along with others like AI godfather Geoffrey Hinton and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, have expressed interest in an international body to govern the use of AI. We may "even see Global AI standards emerge, led by coalitions of nations and enterprises to set the baseline for safety, transparency, and accountability in AI systems," she said.

The value of regulation will be paramount next year amid the growing threat of large-scale AI-driven cybersecurity threats.

"AI deepfake technologies will make generating fake identities and documents trivially easy, creating a trust crisis for businesses," Pat Kinsel, the CEO of Proof, a software platform for notarization, told BI. "The ability to distinguish between real and fraudulent identities and secure digital interactions in the AI age will be the key differentiator between resilient businesses and those at risk of costly fraud."

AI will not take your job — yet

The good news is that business and tech leaders only expect to see AI enhance people's occupations next year, not replace them.

"We'll see efficiency gains in industries that automate repetitive tasks, but humans will still be needed for complex decision-making and creative work. 2025 is the year we really see many using AI as a core part of their job and enabling more productivity," Akhund said.

• Mark Zuckerberg is building a 1,400-acre compound in Kauai, Hawaii, with a vast basement.
• Plans for the compound show an underground structure nearly double the size of the average US house.
• In an interview with Bloomberg, Zuckerberg said it was only a "little shelter" for hurricanes and the like.

Mark Zuckerberg said the 4,500-square-foot underground structure in his Hawaii compound is just a "little shelter."

The description was in answer to the question of whether he is building some kind of armageddon shelter as part of his 1,400-acre property on the island of Kauai.

In a video with Bloomberg's "The Circuit" released on December 19, Zuckerberg effectively said the project was nothing to write home about.

Bloomberg's reporter, Emily Chang, asked if Zuckerberg was entering his "billionaire era" with the Hawaiian home.

(Business Insider in April calculated Zuckerberg's property holdings were worth about $200 million, spanning compounds in Palo Alto, Lake Tahoe and Hawaii.)

"The Kauai thing is really fun," Zuck responded. "We're doing ranching down there," he added, saying he was excited about creating "the highest quality of beef in the world."

In the video, the reporter asks Zuckerberg about the ranch's bunker, joking that he knows something we don't. Zuck responded: "No, I think that's just like a little shelter. It's like a basement."

He added later: "There's just a bunch of storage space and like, I don't know, whatever you want to call it: a hurricane shelter or whatever."

The little shelter, though, is fairly big.

Both Wired and local news outlet Hawaii News Now obtained planning documents showing an underground space spanning some 4,500 square feet.

That's close to double the size of the average US family home. Per census data, in Q2 2024 the medium new single-family home came it at 2,161 square feet.

Wired reported the plans for Zuckerberg's shelter, accessed via a tunnel, included a living space, mechanical room and escape hatch.

A local Hawaii realtor, Tom Tezak, told HNN that shelters were a rarity in Hawaii, and that he'd never seen one so large.

Zuckerberg told Bloomberg in response to media interest in the compound: "I think it got blown out of proportion as if the whole ranch was some kind of doomsday bunker, which is just not true."

• Market research company EMARKETER shared its forecast for retail in 2025.
• Chinese apps like TikTok disrupted the e-commerce space, but growth could be hindered in the US.
• Retailers may create more exclusive content for consumers with in-house production studios.

Technology will continue to impact the retail industry in 2025, pushing the boundaries of traditional sales and e-commerce.

Retailers of all sizes are adapting to this fast-changing consumer landscape, which is on the rebound in the United States.

Retail sales rose 0.7% in November compared to the previous month due to increased automobile sales and the success of online retailers, according to the US Census Bureau. A recent boost in personal-care spending could be a signal that US shoppers are now more confident, meaning they're more apt to splurge at e-commerce retailers like Shein or hybrid models like Walmart.

As the industry sets its sights on the coming year, EMARKETER, a research firm owned by Business Insider's parent company, Axel Springer, published its insights and forecasts.

"As competition intensifies and consumers continue to seek value, retailers will need to double on how to differentiate themselves and offer shoppers what they want, wherever they are," the report said.

From artificial intelligence to retailers like creating production companies, here are five ways the industry will expand and transform in 2025.

Innovative companies will combine generative AI with predictive AI to stimulate business growth

Artificial intelligence has become more prominent in the retail industry, and that trend will only accelerate in 2025. EMARKETER said the way retailers use the technology will become more sophisticated as they leverage both generative and predictive artificial intelligence.

Gen AI is artificial intelligence that can respond to prompts or requests with original content. Predictive AI can help forecast outcomes by recognizing patterns using statistical analysis and machine learning.

"By using the two technologies in tandem, businesses can make faster, more informed decisions," the report said. "They can unlock revenue growth by reducing customer churn, identifying new business opportunities, and forecasting demand — and they can improve profitability by identifying inefficiencies and optimizing operations."

Companies who can harness this technology will win with consumers, EMARKETER said.

The report predicts that companies will be able to make more accurate inventory and assortment planning, which will result in gains in product gross margin. It also says products will arrive on the market faster with less waste and fewer resources.

Americans are enamored with Chinese retailers, but policies and privacy concerns could slow momentum

Several Chinese retailers have dug deep inroads with American consumers in recent years. Cheap products and bullish digital marketing helped brands like Shein, Temu, and TikTok Shop thrive.

Shein generated $2 billion in profits in 2023, while Temu's success helped creator Colin Huang become one of the richest men in China. PDD Holdings, Temu's parent company, said it made about $35 billion in revenues in 2023, a 90% increase from 2022. It's unclear how much TikTok Shop has generated since its 2023 launch, but the company said in its 2024 economic report that the app drove $15 billion in revenue for small businesses in the United States. A March Financial Times report, citing three sources, said TikTok Shop facilitated $16 billion in sales in the United States.

Americans are enamored with these brands, but obstacles lay ahead in 2025.

TikTok, for example, could be banned in the United States before the end of January. Congress passed a law in April that gave ByteDance, the Chinese company that owns TikTok, a January 19 deadline to divest the app or be removed from US app stores, citing security concerns. TikTok asked the US Supreme Court to block the law, arguing it violates the First Amendment rights of Americans who use the app. President-elect Donald Trump has suggested he opposes the ban, but what actions he would take is unclear.

The report said both Shein and Temu, meanwhile, have faced concerns over data privacy, product safety, and copyright infringement. At one point, Temu and Shein sued each other. Shein's parent company, Roadget Business Pte., Ltd., filed a lawsuit against Temu in 2023 that accused it of creating fake Twitter accounts using Shein's name and trademark. Temu later sued Shen, saying the fast-fashion company violated antitrust laws.

A Shein spokesperson said told BI that it "has robust data security policies and practices in line with industry standards, and we are committed to only collecting and using the minimum amount of data needed to fulfill orders. SHEIN stores U.S. customer data within Microsoft's U.S.-based Azure cloud-based solution and within AWS's U.S.-based cloud-based solution."

The spokesperson said Shein "takes product safety very seriously and is dedicated to providing customers with safe and reliable products."

These e-commerce stores also have to compete with powerhouse retailers in the United States, like Amazon, which launched its own Temu-like discount storefront called Haul in November.

Despite the hurdles, EMARKETER says the TikTok Shop will continue to grow, Shein's supply chain model will become more popular, and Temu could expand its offerings into low-cost groceries.

Major retailers like Amazon and Walmart will continue to dominate ad spending while smaller ones struggle

EMARKETER's report said the influx in new retail media networks — a type of advertising platform that lets retailers sell ad space on their channels to third-party brands — won't dent the share of ad spending allocated to Amazon and Walmart.

"Amazon and Walmart combined will gobble up more than 84% of all retail media ad spending in 2025, representing a pervasive and unyielding dominance within the channel," the report said. "The share of ad spending allocated to all other RMNs increased by less than 1 percentage point between 2019 and 2024. While the pie has grown nearly five times larger since 2019, it has also grown significantly more crowded, with more retailers competing for advertiser investment."

The report said most small and midsize retailers don't have a digital footprint big enough to create "meaningful revenues by monetizing their owned and operated digital channels."

"Many are branching into arenas that enable a more scaled reach, including off-site digital channels with the potential to tap into budgets typically reserved for upper-funnel awareness," the report said. "But success off-site or in-store requires a tough-to-stomach investment to fund capabilities, expertise, and technology."

As a result, EMARKETER said advertisers with fewer resources would likely consolidate their retail media network spending across fewer networks, and ad tech platforms would benefit from companies seeking solutions.

Retailers will rely more on media and entertainment content, including in-house production studios

Retailers want to connect with consumers quickly and effectively, leading some to make their own exclusive content. Ulta Beauty launched a "gamified" loyalty program where users compete in in-app games for perks in 2023. That same year, fast food giant Chick-fil-A said it would create a family entertainment app dubbed PLAY to host video series and podcasts.

Companies like Starbucks and LVMH have also created production studios to deliver high-quality video content for their products.

"Many brands and retailers are also using entertainment content to bolster loyalty programs, drive app downloads, and boost engagement," the EMARKETER report said.

The report said more brands will start production studios in 2025 to create episodic content and daily games to engage with consumers. Streaming will be another method retailers will use.

"Brands and retailers will glean consumer insights to better target customers and then eventually sell advertising space around the content powered by first-party data," the report said.

Retailers are leaning into premium loyalty programs and 'partner perks'

Retailers in 2025 will try to make themselves valuable to consumers by partnering with other companies and offering well-rounded subscriptions. For instance, Walmart+ partnered with Paramount+ to allow certain members access to the streaming site. Similarly, Instacart+ members get access to NBCUniversal's streaming service, Peacock. Amazon Prime members can access Grubhub+ benefits for free.

The EMARKETER report says Walmart could partner with Uber to explore meal delivery and rideshare services. Additionally, quick-service restaurants will be the next frontier for retail partnerships.

"Walmart may expand its partnership with Burger King's parent company, Restaurant Brands International, to bring banners like Popeyes to its membership offerings," the report said. "Target could bolster its Circle 360 membership with Starbucks discounts, as there are already Starbucks Cafes in more than 1,700 Target locations."

• Astronauts take hundreds of stunning photos from the International Space Station.
• This year's best snapshots reveal both Earth and space in glorious detail.
• Check out astronauts' views of eclipses, northern lights, storms, and Earth's grandest landscapes.

Every year, the International Space Station produces some of the world's best photography.

Astronauts tend to be technically skilled with a camera, yes. Many of them are engineers, after all.

Their real photography advantage, though, is the glorious view from space as they circle our planet every 90 minutes.

From blue comets and pink northern lights to snowy volcanos and winding rivers, the view 250 miles above Earth does not disappoint.

Here are the best photos of 2024 from the space station.

You simply can't beat the views from the International Space Station.

So astronauts take hundreds of photos each year.

"How would you not want to take pictures and try and share that with the rest of humanity?" NASA astronaut Matt Dominick told ABC News Radio in August.

This year brought a special treat: the bold, bright Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS, or Comet A3.

Of course, astronauts also get front-row seats to the northern lights, aka the aurora borealis.

In April, they watched the shadow of the moon creep across the US during the total solar eclipse.

Earth's atmosphere offers other unique spectacles, such as colorful sunsets and sunrises.

This eerie sheen is noctilucent clouds — extremely rare ice-crystal formations much higher in the atmosphere than any other cloud.

Even these gorgeous photos don't do the real views justice, according to Dominick.

"I've spent a fair amount of time trying to capture what I can see with my eye. I've not been able to achieve it yet," he said.

Not all the views are fun or comforting. Astronauts can see wildfires clearly.

Every year they get a bird's-eye view of hurricanes, too.

Stretching hundreds of miles wide, major storms like Hurricanes Helene and Milton seem to swallow the world below.

Astronauts can even see lightning blaring through the clouds.

One thing they can't often see is borders — like in this spot where Libya, Sudan, and Egypt meet in the Sahara desert.

Astronauts have long described a profound shift in perspective when they first see Earth from above. It's called the "Overview Effect."

They talk about overwhelming feelings of awe, unity, and a sense of Earth's fragility.

The actor William Shatner described it after his 2021 spaceflight with Jeff Bezos: "There's the blue down there and the black up there. There is Mother Earth and comfort, and there is — is there death? I don't know."

"It really is difficult for me to imagine people on Earth not getting along together," NASA astronaut Suni Williams told reporters in September. "It just changes your perspective."

Williams and her crewmate, Butch Wilmore, have been stuck on the space station for months.

They were the first people to fly on Boeing's Starliner spaceship for a roughly week-long flight in July.

Starliner returned to Earth without them after engine issues made NASA officials concerned about its safety.

Now, Williams and Wilmore are scheduled to return to Earth aboard SpaceX's Crew Dragon spaceship in March.

They've taken the setback in stride. "This is my happy place. I love being up here in space," Williams said.

The space station's days are numbered, though. It will reach the end of its operational life in 2030.

NASA has asked SpaceX to design a vehicle to push the ISS out of orbit, to a fiery plunge into the Pacific Ocean.

The ISS will have a "big legacy," Dominick said: "Look what humanity can do when they come together and work together."