How Astronauts Took the Most Important Photo In Space History

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How Astronauts Took the Most Important Photo In Space History

Posted by Soulskill on Friday December 20, 2013 @09:25AM from the disposable-camera-off-the-shelf dept.

The Bad Astronomer writes "On December 24, 1968, the Apollo 8 astronauts saw the Earth rising over the limb of the Moon. The photo they took of this moment — dubbed Earthrise — has become an icon of our need to explore, and to protect our home world. NASA has just released a video explaining how the astronauts were able to capture this unique moment, which included a dash of both coincidence and fast teamwork."

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[SPOILERS] by zAPPzAPP · 2013-12-20 09:28 · Score: 4, Funny

They used a camera.
1. Re:[SPOILERS] by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-20 10:00 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  It only strikes you as interesting because you have no idea how cameras, eyes, and exposure work. The rest of us aren't completely retarded.
2. Re: [SPOILERS] by codegen · 2013-12-20 10:04 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  It's the same reason no stars. The camera exposure is set for daylight ( the moon surface in the foreground) the day side of the earth. The pictures of night earth including artificial lights require longer exposures.
  
  --
  Atlas stands on the earth and carries the celestial sphere on his shoulders.
3. Re:[SPOILERS] by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-20 10:06 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  The picture probably had an exposure setting comparable to what you would use in the Arizona desert at high noon. You don't see any cities on the night side for the same reason you don't see any stars.
4. Re:[SPOILERS] by jdschulteis · 2013-12-20 10:08 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  It does strike me as interesting that unlike the views from orbit we see regularly that show population and technology density (e.g. the one making the point of North Korea's much weaker economic development than South Korea), where cities glow brightly against the rural darkness--the "dark side" of the Earth in the picture is absolutely dark in its entirety.
  Perhaps everything but the sun's illumination is filtered by the atmosphere from that distance? We certainly would have had comparable populations (hence comparable artificial lighting) in 1969...
  Even the world's greatest light polluting metropolis emits a puny amount of light compared to what Earth reflects from its sunlit side. The night side is "absolutely dark in its entirety" simply due to underexposure.
5. Re:[SPOILERS] by Iniamyen · 2013-12-20 10:09 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  Our eyes have more dynamic range than a camera does. The dark area appears dark because it is much darker than the lighted area, so the dynamic range of the camera is "used up" adjusting for the range of the lighted area. Thus, anything below the low end of the adjusted range just looks black. Notice how you can't see many stars in the background, either.
Perspective by Gob+Gob · 2013-12-20 09:32 · Score: 3, Insightful

Perspective is such a wonderful thing
People should get out and about more
1. Re:Perspective by wonkey_monkey · 2013-12-20 10:13 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  Perspective is such a wonderful thing
  Not from where I'm standing.
  
  --
  systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Re:It's not important by Infiniti2000 · 2013-12-20 09:44 · Score: 4, Insightful

The perspective from the moon makes it important because it fuels the need to explore. That's why the iconic moment is important.
Re:Spinit. by ArbitraryName · 2013-12-20 09:49 · Score: 4, Interesting

FUCK! China landed a probe on the moon. Dammit we haven't done a damm thing in ages.
You mean except for the two rovers that are currently driving around on Mars?
Re:Spinit. by almitydave · 2013-12-20 09:50 · Score: 3, Insightful

FUCK! China landed a probe on the moon. Dammit we haven't done a damm thing in ages.
Good for China. Now how many probes do they have on Mars? We just landed, what, our 4th rover?

CHINA. you know those guys who make all our cheap plastic walmart crap... is now kicking our asses in space.
Let me know when China lands men on the moon, or anything on Mars. Personally, I'm also super impressed with the Cassini mission. Did you know that Titan has lakes?

--
my, your, his/her/its, our, your, their
I'm, you're, he's/she's/it's, we're, you're, they're
Fast teamwork? by rnturn · 2013-12-20 09:55 · Score: 3, Interesting

``included a dash of both coincidence and fast teamwork''

Hmm... interesting description. It's not as though they went to the moon for a single orbit (there were ten) and then came right back. Did they manage to miss the Earth rise until their last orbit and had to act quickly? No, it was on the fourth orbit. If they missed it, they'd get another chance in two hours. From the transcript, I found the most interesting thing was that they had a list of things they were supposed to photograph, that Earth doesn't appear to have been on the list, and that there seems to been a bit of a disagreement as to whether they should even be snapping that photo. Sure the photo schedule they had was driven by the scientific information they were collection for the planetary scientists and for the planners of the future Apollo missions but you'd think they could have contacted Capcom and told them "Hey we've got a great PR opportunity here...". It's sort of funny nowadays that many, if not most, unmanned missions seem to have a view of Earth built into their photographic schedule. Keeps the general public interested, I guess.
(No... haven't seen the video yet; bandwidth starved at the my location. The above is based on the transcript.)

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CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
1. Re:Fast teamwork? by PPH · 2013-12-20 10:13 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  that there seems to been a bit of a disagreement as to whether they should even be snapping that photo.
  I can understand that. Film* was a precious commodity and they didn't want to miss a required shot by snapping a bunch of unplanned crap.
  *Don't ask, kid. And stay off my lawn!
  
  --
  Have gnu, will travel.
2. Re:Fast teamwork? by Anubis+IV · 2013-12-20 10:49 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  In the video, there wasn't actually a disagreement about taking the picture. It's clear from Borman's tone that he was kidding with Anders about whether or not that photo was scheduled, and Anders responds with a chuckle and keeps taking the pictures.
  It's also worth pointing out that this was at the height of the space race. They didn't really need any more PR at that point. They just needed to win.
  Also, as I understand it, the reason they missed it previously (and on subsequent orbits) was because the capsule was simply oriented in the wrong direction. It was only because they were in the middle of the roll maneuver that the windows turned for awhile in a direction that allowed them to capture the shot. Prior to and after the maneuver they were not oriented in such a way that they could capture the shot.
3. Re:Fast teamwork? by Alomex · 2013-12-20 10:50 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  and that there seems to been a bit of a disagreement as to whether they should even be snapping that photo.
  
  That's a joke son. You can hear it clearly in the recording that it was meant in jest/snarky-remark.
Re:It's not important by Opportunist · 2013-12-20 10:04 · Score: 4, Interesting

That's what is important about it.
That picture of Earth had a pretty big impact on peoples' minds. It's hard to convey that to younger generations. Imagine you're living in a world where two sides of the globe are hell bent on destroying each other and both sides kinda-sorta think that they could win, or at least that they could kinda-sorta survive such a MAD scenario. They keep telling you that the other side is out to get you and to kill you, and that there is nothing more important than getting them first.
And then you see our planet, set against this pitch black void of space. That tiny, precious marble that we call our Earth, the only place where we can live. A tiny spec of heaven in the middle of the unfriendly, dangerous and outright deadly void around it.
Of course we knew what our planet looks like. We had people in orbit before. They were up there and they were able to look down onto our planet. But they always saw it as something huge. When you're in LEO, Earth is pretty big. When you're looking at it from the moon, it gets incredibly tiny. Precious. And very fragile.
I don't want to say that this picture "won" the cold war, in the sense that we steered towards mutual acceptance and away from the idea that we should blow each other up. SALT was started before it. But I think it did have some impact on the people, and on how they saw our planet.

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We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Re:Oh America by Minwee · 2013-12-20 10:08 · Score: 3, Funny

My guess is they didn't choose Genesis chapter 3 for the reading either, about how Man shouldn't eat from the forbidden tree of knowledge, lest he realize he's naked.
NASA felt that telling everybody that the crew of Apollo 8 spent the entire mission naked might be bad for the public image of the space program.
Re:Spinit. by The+Rizz · 2013-12-20 10:08 · Score: 3, Insightful

We look like such fools.. Talk up how awesome NASA was!
The other way to look at it is; "look how awesome NASA used to be - let's fund them again, and get more awesome like this, dammit!"