Postcards from the Planet

I can’t forget waking up in the middle of the night, July of 1969, to watch Neil Armstrong descend the ladder of the lunar ladder and put his enormous moon boots onto the surface of the moon. In the years since, it’s taken on a aura of inevitability–we all know the journey was successful, and we’ve all seen the rocks they bought back–but at the time:

• We didn’t know how deep the dust would be, and scientists were afraid that they would sink into the lunar surface.
• We didn’t know if something might go wrong and the astronauts would be stranded on the moon, and, with the whole world watching–especially with the Soviet Union, our arch-enemy, watching, die an agonizing death from starvation or worse, explosive decompression.
• We just didn’t know what would happen.

We all know now what DID happen: the six Apollo trips to the moon were successful–they were successful even in the days when a computer meant massive hardware that filled entire rooms (you know all those people in the room in the videos–that’s what they’re doing, operating the massive computers needed, computers that would now be replaced by a single PC that costs around $1000). They were successful. Politically, it was a huge coup. America amazed everyone. We did it–we did what was seen as impossible. We did something no one has done since, including us.

And for a few hours, the entire country watched, and instead of being angry, or divided, or worried, we were thrilled and proud.

In 1972, the Apollo 17 astronauts took this photo, called the Blue Marble:

Apollo 17: the Blue Marble

And this is what NASA said about it at the time:

View of the Earth as seen by the Apollo 17 crew traveling toward the moon. This translunar coast photograph extends from the Mediterranean Sea area to the Antarctica south polar ice cap. This is the first time the Apollo trajectory made it possible to photograph the south polar ice cap. Note the heavy cloud cover in the Southern Hemisphere. Almost the entire coastline of Africa is clearly visible. The Arabian Peninsula can be seen at the northeastern edge of Africa. The large island off the coast of Africa is the Malagasy Republic. The Asian mainland is on the horizon toward the northeast.

In 2008, NASA decided it was time to being its new imaging technology to bear to create a new Blue Marble photo of the earth. Using data from numerous photos, they created this image:

NASA in 2008: the Blue Marble

One of the first photos of the earth from space changed history. The Apollo 8 astronauts took this photo of the earth rising over the surface of the moon on December 24, 1968:

This photo (and others like it) started the environmental movement of the late 60s and early 70s–the first Earth Day. The photo instantly sparked changes in attitudes toward the environment. Suddenly, we all knew that we had only one earth, small and fragile, and in need of our care.