#9. Earthrise
Illustration Source: NASA (Public Domain)
Earthrise
by Frank Borman and
William Anders,
December 22, 1968
Number Nine,... Number Nine,… Number Nine,...
…er, sorry! I’m a Beatles fan and I just couldn’t help myself…
Our #9 in the Top Ten Greatest Images and Imaginations in Astronomy and Space Exploration represents the only actual image that made it to the list.
In a race between mission and serendipity, the heart often triumphs over the brain.
Apollo 8 capped off the end of nearly two years of tragedy and retrenchment for NASA and set the stage for the start of one of the most spectacular achievements in all of the history of mankind. It represented the first manned lunar orbit – the first time human eyes would see the dark side of the moon directly – and culminated in the astronauts William Anders, Jim Lovell, and Frank Borman reading from the book of Genesis on Christmas Eve to what was then the largest television audience in history. The reading prompting atheist Madalyn Murray O’Hair to sue the U.S. government on the grounds the reading violated the nation’s first amendment. The Supreme Court threw out the case. It seems space wasn’t in their jurisdiction.
NASA assigned Apollo 8 the most mundane mission of mere reconnaissance. The programmers had scheduled it to take high resolution photographs of potential landing sites on both the light side and the dark side of the moon. On its fourth orbit, as it was emerging from the dark side on December 22, Borman repositioned the craft to point the antennae towards the Earth to end radio silence. The view from the window of our blue planet rising above the lunar horizon awed him so much he exclaimed, “Look at that picture over there! Here’s the Earth coming up!” He, and later Anders, snapped a couple of unscheduled pictures.
These pictures, now known by Borman’s description of them – “Earthrise” – have become more famous than the mission itself. They strike our hearts with a new hope – a new beginning – for all mankind. Indeed, that’s what Apollo 8 represented for the US Space program and, judging by the eyes glued to the television sets, for the world, too.
An interesting note on the two pictures: Borman took the first picture, a black and white photograph artistically framed to show the Earth rising above the lunar horizon. Anders clicked the color picture with a more scientific eye by orienting the picture as they actually saw it with the north and south poles of both the moon and the Earth pointing up and down. Oddly enough, we see the Ander’s color picture most often reproduced, but rotated in a manner to capture the same framing technique Borman chose for his black and white copy.
In the end, the spontaneous act outshines the successful mission and the heart prevails over the brain.
By odd coincidence, on November 22, 1968, exactly one month before the Apollo 8 astronauts took this famous picture, the Beatles released the album popularly known as “the White Album.” Deep into side four of the two disc album, on the fifth track, appears the song “Revolution Number 9” from which comes the haunting lyrics, “Number nine… Number nine… Number nine…”
Previous Slide (#10 - Let's Start at the Very Beginning)
Next Slide (#8, because 8 minutes can make a big Difference)