50 Years Ago Today, Apollo 8 Changed Humanity's Vision of Earth Forever (theguardian.com) 92
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.
In before (Score:1)
Re:In before (Score:5, Funny)
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.
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If it affected him, nobody would probably notice any difference.
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Re: In before (Score:5, Informative)
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.
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Uninsured numbers weren't cut in half [kff.org], and premiums increased at the same rate [ncsl.org] as prior to Obamacare.
You also conveniently ignore that President Obama had complete control for a good chunk of the first two years of his Presidency (Chuck Schumer was Senate Leader, and Nancy Pelosi was Speaker).
Despite being given $350 billion by President Bush [cbsnews.com] (as then-President Elect Obama requested) to stimulate the economy, the economy was starting to slink back to recession [thebalance.com] when President Trump was elected, with GDP plu
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That's what I'm worried about. Imagine if the next Koch stooge is actually competent.
Re: In before (Score:1, Troll)
Re: In before (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
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No wonder you're on my enemies list around here,
All my enemies are as pleasant as you, tbh. Probably as happy, too.
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You've never done business in China, have you? There is zero concept of "win-win"; if there is a winner, there MUST be a loser. You negotiate for "win-win" and YOU are the loser. You might not like his "bull in a China shop" approach, but it works [bbc.com], because that is how business is done in China in the first place.
And why is the Left suddenly full of hawks who want to deepen and increase wars? President Obama campaigned on ending Iraq and Afghanistan; instead of that, he involved us in numerous new wars [latimes.com].
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Oh and comparing what happened with another POTUS in the past isn't carte blanche for this son of a bitch to do whatever he wants, so don't bother trotting that bullshit out to me again. Trump has turned the U.S. into a complete mockery of itself. You cannot refute this.
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Re: In before (Score:2)
Re: In before (Score:2)
Experiment in trollificationism (Score:1)
Let's feed into their whacky conspiracies and see where it leads them all, just for the hell of it.
"Hey, by golly, you're right, no stars! We've been duped! Go take those phonies on! Here's $10 for your cause..."
The worst that can happen is enough of them believe it to vote a conspiracy nut into office. But since we already have one...
Re:Experiment in trollificationism (Score:5, Insightful)
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One strong uniform color behind earth.
The Germans where really good at propaganda so the image was cleaned up for publication.
People loved the image in the way the Germans suggested and NASA could grow its influence and budget.
Germans helped NASA win again and again like that.
Smart suggestions like that made NASA great in the past.
The image is not fake, its just cleaned a bit to pres
How to rid them [Re:In before] (Score:1)
Aaachoo! Hey, what's wrong with you, I see plenty of stars.
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This is the only home we have and yet we're busy shooting at each other, threatening nuclear war, and wearing suicide vests
Literally none of those affect the planet. Even nuclear war would only cause a slight change in its atmosphere for a few decades. For a planet that's been around for 4 billion years, that's nothing.
Perhaps what he's actually going for is global warming. But killing people is a great way to stop global warming. Every living person contributes to GHG emissions because we still can't feed and clothe them without replacing forests with grasslands and digging up carbon-based fuel. If half of humanity died from n
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Your argument assumes constant average densities for each body. Not true in general, but letting that go...
To finish your argument, ge/gl = (rho_e/rho_l) * (R_e/R_l). Now R_e/R_l = 3.67 and rho_e / rho_l = 5.51 g/cm^3 / 3.34 g/cm^3 = 1.65 So g_e/g_l ~= 3.67 * 1.65 = 6.06.
Not bad, but the fact is that the average densities rho_e and rho_l are determined from the observed mass of the body divided by its observed volume. The better approach is to use the masses of the bodies, and the fact that an inverse-squar
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First, Moon density is established firmly by the geological study of moon rock samples, and not by estimates of it's mass, so it is a truly independent measurement. This is an important part of the argument above, which you and the illiterate idiot you "shout out" to fail to see.
The rest of my argument refutes the idiot above by separating the factors that determine the gravity into two truly independent variables, and showing the fallacy of the original argument by explaining why there is no need for the Moon to be "six times larger".
You're a bit of an idiot like him - you don't understand the fallacy, and you don't understand what is an effective refutation. In your final calculation, you have a hidden dependency on the volume in your mass guesstimate, so someone who understands basic physics can still point to it and ask the same question, "why isn't it 6 times bigger". Not possible with the argument I make.
Go back to school.
"Go back to school?" No thanks. I have a PhD in physics already.
You can determine a planetary object's mass from its orbital motion with other massive bodies. And there is no need for density or volume at all in the calculation of the force of gravity from a given distance away from a planetary body -- even if that distance is the object's radius, i.e., you are on its surface. You can treat the entire mass of the spherical object as though it was concentrated at the center. That was the point that "hey!" an
Re:Why isn't it six times as large? (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
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Make the image ready for publication and easy to print so its propaganda value would be easy to spread.
Grass is Greener (Score:2)
Doesn't mean we shouldn't go out on an adventure to help appreciate what we have
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This version of "you are all cows, say moo" is too eloquent. Bring back the drunk immature cow troller. Change Bad.
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Re:Let's not forget (Score:4, Insightful)
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OMG, you sound like that Franklin crank, or even that Jefferson whacko.
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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 remember this (Score:2)
See it as it happened (Score:4, Informative)
For a high-resolution simulation of the taking of the photograph, see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Narrated by Andrew Chaikin, author of "A Man on the Moon".
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That changed humanity's vision of German engineering and production forever.
Germans got the best jobs and nobody asked difficult questions about their past employment.
The US got to paint USA on the side of German rockets and that was good after all that investment in German tech.
YES, DAMNIT, YES! (Score:2)
"People realised that we lived on this fragile planet and that we needed to take care of it."
Never forget!
Apollo 8 Special Report on CBS (Score:4, Informative)
Time travel to this special report aired by CBS on Dec 27, 1968 without commercials
https://www.c-span.org/video/?... [c-span.org]
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.
Re:to admit (Score:5, Insightful)
I like this one [si.edu]. Every human alive or that has ever lived is framed in this photo, except for one.
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Before the Soviet Union, France and the UK could make an offer of employment after WW2.
Sideways (Score:2)