Ian
priscilla 1Apollo Missions
June 17th 2009 04:04
Forty years after the Apollo missions took Neil Armstrong to the moon, we hear from the astronauts who took the iconic images which changed our world and America's national mythology.
Thanks to The Guardian for these images and information.
On 7 December, 1972, Apollo 17 lifts off from the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida, three and a half years after Apollo 11 made Neil Armstrong the first man to walk on the moon. Seventeen was the last of the Apollo missions and the last manned flight to the moon.
William A Anders: 'We had three 70mm Hasselblad reflex cameras with assorted lenses ... To my continued amazement we had no light meter, since f-stops and exposure times had been pre-caculated ... for the very detailed photographic target plan I was charged to execute. There was nothing in the plan for an Earthrise photo. Indeed, we did not actually see an Earthrise until, on our third orbit, we changed the spacecraft's orientation to heads up and looking forward. As we came around the back side of the moon, where I had been taking pictures of craters near our orbital track, I looked up and saw the startlingly beautiful sight of our home planet 'rising' up above the stark and battered lunar horizon. It was the only colour against the deep blackness of space. In short, it was beautiful, and clearly delicate. Frank Borman called for a camera … Jim Lovell also grabbed a short-lens camera and we all blazed away at this astounding vision.'
The lunar module is to the left and footprints of the astronauts are clearly visible in the lunar soil.
Michael Collins: 'Of the various uncertainties during the flight of Apollo 11, returning Neil and Buzz in one piece to the command module was paramount in my mind ... Just prior to my taking this photograph, they had departed Tranquility Base using the lower half of their landing craft, Eagle, as a launch platform. The upper half (second stage) appeared first as a tiny gold insect crawling across the lunar landscape, and then began to take form as a man-made object, although its angular shape still seemed strange and awkward to me. Little by little, they grew closer, steady, as if on rails, and I thought, 'What a beautiful sight,' one that has to be recorded. As I reached for my Hasselblad, suddenly the Earth popped up over the horizon, directly behind Eagle. I could not have staged it any better, but the alignment was not of my doing, just a happy coincidence.'
Gene Cernan: 'This photo, I believe, captures it all - mankind, the moon, the Earth, the blackness and endlessness of time and space, and, perhaps of greatest importance, the flag of our nation. The legacy of Apollo is not the technology you now hold in your hand, but rather the dedication and commitment of those millions of Americans who, in troubled times, made it all possible.'
Thanks to The Guardian for these images and information.
Apollo 17: Lift off
Apollo 8: Earthrise
William A Anders: 'We had three 70mm Hasselblad reflex cameras with assorted lenses ... To my continued amazement we had no light meter, since f-stops and exposure times had been pre-caculated ... for the very detailed photographic target plan I was charged to execute. There was nothing in the plan for an Earthrise photo. Indeed, we did not actually see an Earthrise until, on our third orbit, we changed the spacecraft's orientation to heads up and looking forward. As we came around the back side of the moon, where I had been taking pictures of craters near our orbital track, I looked up and saw the startlingly beautiful sight of our home planet 'rising' up above the stark and battered lunar horizon. It was the only colour against the deep blackness of space. In short, it was beautiful, and clearly delicate. Frank Borman called for a camera … Jim Lovell also grabbed a short-lens camera and we all blazed away at this astounding vision.'
Apollo 11: Buzz Aldrin stands next to the US flag
Apollo 11: The Eagle's ascent stage
Apollo 17: Gene Cernan holding the US flag
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