Fill out this form to email this article to a friend
Earth, from on high
By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published April 21, 2007
When astronauts return from space, what they talk about isn't the brute force of the rocket launch or the exhilaration of zero gravity. It's the view. Only two dozen men - those who journeyed to the moon - have seen the full Earth view (the first full view of Earth came from the moon-bound Apollo 8 in 1968). Most U.S. spaceflight has been in low orbit where only a piece of the planet can be seen; those travelers have seen the curvature of Earth, its magnificent beauty, its fragility, and its lack of borders. For Earth Day, which is Sunday, the Associated Press asked space travelers to recall what it's like to see Earth from above: "Earth has gone through great transitions and volcanic impacts and all sorts of traumatic things. But it has survived. ... I'm not referring to human conflicts. I'm referring to the physical appearance of the Earth at a great distance. That it generally is mostly very peaceful (when) looked at from a distance." Buzz Aldrin, second man to walk on the moon "The pictures of the Middle East are the ones that impress me the most and primarily because it's normally very clear, no clouds, and it's very bright because of the desert. I love looking down at that area ... and thinking about all the history that took place in the cradle of civilization." Eileen Collins, first female space shuttle commander "Up in space when you see a sunset or sunrise, the light is coming to you from the sun through that little shell of the Earth's atmosphere and back out to the spacecraft you're in. The atmosphere acts like a prism. ... You come back impressed, once you've been up there, with how thin our little atmosphere is that supports all life here on Earth. So if we foul it up, there's no coming back from something like that." John Glenn, first American to orbit the Earth (1962) and former U.S. senator "We're living on a tiny little dust mote in left field on a rather insignificant galaxy. And basically this is it for humans. It strikes me that it's a shame that we're squabbling over oil and borders." Bill Anders, Apollo 8, whose photos of Earth became famous More views NASA's database of astronaut photos can be found at http://earth.jsc.nasa.gov/sseop/clickmap/
[Last modified April 21, 2007, 02:44:40]
Share your thoughts on this story
|
News
Fifty years ago, they were screwed-up kids sent to the Florida School for Boys to be straightened out. But now they are screwed-up men, scarred by the whippings they endured. Read the story and see a video and portrait gallery.
Print
Email story
Comment
Email editor
