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50 Years Ago Today, Apollo 8 Changed Humanity's Vision of Earth Forever (theguardian.com)
No one told them to look for the Earth. It was Christmas Eve 1968 and the first manned mission to the moon had reached its destination. As Apollo 8 slipped into lunar orbit the crew prepared to read passages of Genesis for a TV broadcast to the world. But as the command module came around on its fourth lap, there it was visible through the window -- a bright blue and white bauble suspended in the black above the relentless grey of the moon. The Guardian: Before that moment 50 years ago, no one had seen an earthrise. The sight sent Bill Anders, the mission photographer, scrambling for his camera. He slapped a 70mm colour roll into the Hasselblad, set the focus to infinity, and started shooting though the telephoto lens. What he captured became one of the most influential images in history. A driving force of the environmental movement, the picture, which became known as Earthrise, showed the world as a singular, fragile, oasis.
On previous laps Anders had snapped the far side of the moon for the geologists and the near side of it for Apollo's landing site planners. "It didn't take long for the moon to become boring. It was like dirty beach sand," Anders told the Guardian. "Then we suddenly saw this object called Earth. It was the only colour in the universe." Apollo 8 launched from the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida on 21 December 1968. The enormous Saturn V rocket, more than 110 metres tall, had flown only twice before and never with a crew. But on that day the rocket performed. Tucked inside the command module, Anders, Frank Borman and James Lovell looped the planet twice before the third stage blasted them onwards to the moon. They arrived nearly three days later, completed 10 lunar orbits, and headed home for a splashdown in the north Pacific.
Earthrise did not have an immediate impact. Its philosophical significance sunk in over years, after Nasa put it on a stamp, and Time and Life magazine highlighted it as an era-defining image. "It gained this iconic status," Anders said. "People realised that we lived on this fragile planet and that we needed to take care of it." The shot did more than boost the environmental movement. Even Anders, who calls himself "an arch cold war warrior," felt it held a message for humanity. "This is the only home we have and yet we're busy shooting at each other, threatening nuclear war, and wearing suicide vests," he said. "It amazes me." Further reading: Wired.
On previous laps Anders had snapped the far side of the moon for the geologists and the near side of it for Apollo's landing site planners. "It didn't take long for the moon to become boring. It was like dirty beach sand," Anders told the Guardian. "Then we suddenly saw this object called Earth. It was the only colour in the universe." Apollo 8 launched from the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida on 21 December 1968. The enormous Saturn V rocket, more than 110 metres tall, had flown only twice before and never with a crew. But on that day the rocket performed. Tucked inside the command module, Anders, Frank Borman and James Lovell looped the planet twice before the third stage blasted them onwards to the moon. They arrived nearly three days later, completed 10 lunar orbits, and headed home for a splashdown in the north Pacific.
Earthrise did not have an immediate impact. Its philosophical significance sunk in over years, after Nasa put it on a stamp, and Time and Life magazine highlighted it as an era-defining image. "It gained this iconic status," Anders said. "People realised that we lived on this fragile planet and that we needed to take care of it." The shot did more than boost the environmental movement. Even Anders, who calls himself "an arch cold war warrior," felt it held a message for humanity. "This is the only home we have and yet we're busy shooting at each other, threatening nuclear war, and wearing suicide vests," he said. "It amazes me." Further reading: Wired.
Our President stares directly into the sun during an eclipse. I don't think you're going to preempt all the retards in this country somehow.
For a high-resolution simulation of the taking of the photograph, see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Narrated by Andrew Chaikin, author of "A Man on the Moon".
The Earth's radius is roughly three and a half times that of the Moon.
One of the nifty demonstrations they make you do in vector calculus is the proving that you can treat a spherical body like a point of the same mass for purposes of gravitation. The Earth is roughly 82x as massive, and 82 / 3.7^2 is 5.9.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
"President of the Free World', my ASS. He's the Village Idiot, who somehow managed to get elected. He's just a seat-warmer for the next actual POTUS. In the meantime we seem to be powerless to prevent him from completely ruining everything he touches. One can hope he comes down with glioblastoma and has to be removed, or in one of his frequent hissy-fit temper-tantrums, has a stroke and drops dead.
Here's the trick to dealing with that Flat Earth crowd: learning to distinguish between the ones who go along with it because it's funny, and the ones who actually believe it. The former you just chuckle along with; the latter, you earmark as having failed the basic intelligence test, and treat them accordingly thereafter.
Time travel to this special report aired by CBS on Dec 27, 1968 without commercials
https://www.c-span.org/video/?...
Later in this program includes interview with Tom Kelly of Grumman who discusses the LEM. Kelly wrote an excellent book about the design and construction of this spacecraft many decades later, very insightful.
mfwright@batnet.com
'Faith' should be a PRIVATE thing, not what makes decisions for an entire country. Practice whatever 'religion' you want in the privacy of your own home, or go to a church, but keep your 'faith' out my government, out of politics, out of my workplace, out of our public schools, out of my doctor's office, and out of my bedroom. Your 'religious leaders' should have nothing whatsoever to say about politics to anyone but themselves, let alone collecting money to give to political candidates. We do not need 'faith' to run a country, and we sure as fuck don't need some 2000 year old work of fiction that is not even relevant anymore, and that furthermore is spin-doctored to mean whatever the bastard who is 'interpreting' it wants it to mean. Truth be told I'd rather erase the entire idea of 'religion' and 'god(s)' from our entire species' minds, it's holding back both our physiological and social evolution.
That's what I'm worried about. Imagine if the next Koch stooge is actually competent.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I like this one. Every human alive or that has ever lived is framed in this photo, except for one.
Have gnu, will travel.
Obama? The guy who:
- moved the Healthcare topic that's been neglected by Congress for over 50 years? That cut the uninsured in half, insuring over 20 million people who couldn't afford healthcare.
And to just drill in how difficult of a topic it still is and how much Obama accomplished; the Republicans with 6 years of majority, 2 years of full control; couldn't even "fix" nor "improve" on it. They couldn't even bring their ideas to vote. This is despite 8 years of whining, promising, and wasting tax payer monies on BS "intent" votes on repeal! Despite this topic being their over arching promise to their voters.
- caught & killed Osama Bin Ladin. The guy who executed the biggest attack on US soil since Pearl Harbor, which was over 70 years ago. We invaded how many countries trying to catch this guy?
- oh and got us out of the Great Recession; the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression from 80 years ago.
So we only need someone like Obama to solve the really big crises that happen about twice a century. For normal decade level problems any normal President should suffice. Unfortunately, we have Trump.
...growing economy
..no new wars
Yeah sure he's FUCKING UP the economy with his bull-in-a-china-shop tarriffs and other stupid decisions, and trying to screw with the fed rather than let them do their job ergo worst DJI for xmas eve in the history of the DJI.
Ill-advised (by every miltary adviser and diplomatic adviser there is) decision to pull out of Syria, making all our allies wonder what the fuck we're doing, making them question ever trusting the U.S. for anything, and very likely giving new life to ISIS/Daesh.
Trump is ruining everything he touches. He needs to GO. ASAP.
No wonder you're on my enemies list around here, you're clearly either a Trump supporter, utterly clueless, or both. Get lost, and please don't vote anymore.
No wonder you're on my enemies list around here,
All my enemies are as pleasant as you, tbh. Probably as happy, too.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Why are you so scared of a God you think doesn't exist?
God may not exist, but the people who want to meddle in my affairs on his behalf do exist. Just because I want people to keep their religion out of my home does not that their god exists.
I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.