Earthrise
NASA
In 1968 NASA’s Apollo 8 became the first manned space flight to achieve sufficient velocity to escape the gravitational pull of the earth and the crew, Frank Borman, James Lovell and William Anders became the first humans to see the earth while orbiting the moon.
On December 24 Frank Borman’s words on seeing the earth rise from the barren lunar landscape were "Oh, my God! Look at that picture over there! Isn't that something…".
Strangely, there was nothing scheduled in the mission’s plan to photograph this breathtaking view with the Hasselblad camera that was on board and the first shot is seldom seen as the camera was loaded with monochromatic film. Fortunately, the crew quickly reloaded with colour film and this is the image that was seen all over the world and has become the most famous of NASA’s photographs.
Even more surprising is the fact that although the crew had a 16 mm movie camera on board, it was only a year later on Apollo 10 that the first moving pictures were taken of the earth rising over the moon’s horizon.
The photographs taken on Christmas Eve 1968, along with many other images and film, some of the later ones on high definition video, have helped drive the impetus of the green movement by showing the fragility and vulnerability of our planet.
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