Earthrise: "Riders on the Earth Together"

The words in the image above were written by the American poet Archibald MacLeish upon seeing the imagery coming from the Apollo 8 mission (the famous Earthrise image, accompanying the quote above, was taken just the day before MacLeish's quote was published).

Seeing our world from space, seeing that there are no national boundaries, no grand positions for monarchs and rulers to claim, seeing that we are all connected by sharing our beautiful little Blue Marble in the vastness of space... comes with an existential awareness that could be gained in no other way. 

Seeing ourselves as "riders on the Earth together" brings us together in our shared experience as members of our world, participants in our biosphere. 

---

Below, you can read the entire text from MacLeish's 1968 New York Times article:

A Reflection: Riders on Earth Together, Brothers in Eternal Cold
by Archibald MacLeish
New York Times, December 25, 1968

"Men's conception of themselves and of each other has always depended on their notion of the earth. When the earth was the World -- all the world there was -- and the stars were lights in Dante's heaven, and the ground beneath men's feet roofed Hell, they saw themselves as creatures at the center of the universe, the sole, particular concern of God -- and from that high place they ruled and killed and conquered as they pleased.

And when, centuries later, the earth was no longer the World but a small, wet spinning planet in the solar system of a minor star off at the edge of an inconsiderable galaxy in the immeasurable distances of space -- when Dante's heaven had disappeared and there was no Hell (at least no Hell beneath the feet) -- men began to see themselves not as God-directed actors at the center of a noble drama, but as helpless victims of a senseless farce where all the rest were helpless victims also and millions could be killed in world-wide wars or in blasted cities or in concentration camps without a thought or reason but the reason -- if we call it one -- of force.

Now, in the last few hours, the notion may have changed again. For the first time in all of time men have seen it not as continents or oceans from the little distance of a hundred miles or two or three, but seen it from the depth of space; seen it whole and round and beautiful and small as even Dante -- that "first imagination of Christendom" -- had never dreamed of seeing it; as the Twentieth Century philosophers of absurdity and despair were incapable of guessing that it might be seen. And seeing it so, one question came to the minds of those who looked at it. "Is it inhabited?" they said to each other and laughed -- and then they did not laugh. What came to their minds a hundred thousand miles and more into space -- "half way to the moon" they put it -- what came to their minds was the life on that little, lonely, floating planet; that tiny raft in the enormous, empty night. "Is it inhabited?"

The medieval notion of the earth put man at the center of everything. The nuclear notion of the earth put him nowhere -- beyond the range of reason even -- lost in absurdity and war. This latest notion may have other consequences. Formed as it was in the minds of heroic voyagers who were also men, it may remake our image of mankind. No longer that preposterous figure at the center, no longer that degraded and degrading victim off at the margins of reality and blind with blood, man may at last become himself.

To see the earth as it truly is, small and blue and beautiful in that eternal silence where it floats, is to see ourselves as riders on the earth together, brothers on that bright loveliness in the eternal cold -- brothers who know now they are truly brothers." 

The Earth and our Moon from Voyager 1

"There is a tide in the affairs of men, 

Which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune. 

Omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries. 

On such a full sea are we now afloat. 

And we must take the current when it serves, or lose our ventures." 

-William Shakespeare

This picture of the Earth and Moon were taken by the Voyager 1 spacecraft from a distance of 7.25 million miles (~11.66 million km). Taken on 18 September 1977 (when I was -6 years old!), this picture as the very first ever taken that showed the Earth and the Moon in one single frame.

Voyager 1 is the most distant piece of human engineering and human exploration. It's fanciful to sit and think sometimes about how far away it really is now. As of the exact time of this writing, Voyager 1 is 20,661,735,297 km from the Earth and still going. The Voyagers and their mission were a hallmark of early space exploration. Now is truly the time for us to work together to take this current of humanity's evolution as a spacefaring species, and find our ventures among the other realms in the cosmic ocean.


(Note: in the picture above, the Moon appears very close to the Earth. However, the Moon is really about as far away from us as 30 times the diameter of the Earth! The picture certainly wasn't taken from equal distances to both Earth and Moon)

A Wild Moon Dance

I write a little bit of fiction almost every morning. I find it helps me to keep myself sane, by releasing some of my pent-up creativity and my thoughts. Though I usually don't have full control over the writing as it comes, sometimes I like what I've written enough to share it. 

Lately, I've been using some daily flash fiction writing challenges from Writing.com to prime the engines. They're really just suggestions of using three words together in your short story, though I sometimes just use them as a prompt to find another idea (and I don't always write a full story). Today's challenge was to use the words 'trance', 'moon', and 'wild' in one writing, so I wrote the following story. Here it is, for your amusement, "A Wild Moon Dance":

Ian stumbled along the side of the road. The light from the near-full moon shining through the trees cast zebra stripes of light against the dark of the night on the road. The crickets and cicadas and other insects of summer were blasting their raucous symphony of screeches and buzzes into the night’s air. Ian kicked at the larger pebbles on the side of the road as he walked. He’d watch them tumble away, never moving in a straight line. “She’d kick me like one of these stones if she could,” he thought to himself, “but that’s what I get for thinking it would work out this time.” 
Ian was wrapped in his own thoughts, so much so that he hadn’t even noticed when the trees had ended and the road had set out in the middle of some large fields. “No one about for miles,” Ian said aloud once he had lifted his head to see where he now was. He had walked this way dozens of times before, and driven down this road too many times to count, but now the road and the fields, set within a moonlit summer evening, had something different about them. Ian felt the hairs on the back of his neck raise up as he looked around at his world. That glowing orb of moonlight cast mini shadows behind every blade of grass and every little stone. It gave the world a depth that made Ian feel comforted. 
Not knowing why, Ian stepped off of the road and onto the grasses in the field beside him. He hiked along the field as it rose to a hill. At the top of the hill, Ian looked around: the road back behind and below continued off into the hills, the forest where the road emerged, more trees and hills now in the direction that Ian had hiked. Nothing but fields and forests, hiding out the rest of the world only miles away where people slept in their homes, drove in their cars, or worked at their businesses. “No one but me,” Ian thought, “No one but me.” 
Ian felt his feet start to kick from under him, stomping back and forth. One foot would kick out and his hips would twist, then the other foot. Without knowing why, Ian started to dance. He spun his whole body about, and began dipping his head up and down. His arms startled twisting and pumping along with the rest of his body. Taken up in a trance, Ian danced in the moonlight on the top of the hill. He felt a wildness beat into his heart. He smelled the Earth and the grasses and the world on the wind. He began stomping his feet down a bit harder, giving himself a rhythm, drumming a beat that the Earth had known longer than humanity. The wild worked itself into Ian. He felt sweat begin to drip down from his forehead as he lost himself in the night. 
But then, a familiar and yet distant noise broke into Ian’s perception of the evening. Ian spun toward the forest where the road emerged to see the approaching lights of a car. Ian kneeled down in the field at the top of the hill and watched. The lights danced about as they grew stronger, ripping through the trees as the car emerged from the wood. The sound of the engine assaulted the night. Ian watched as the car continued on, knowing that the person driving most likely had taken no notice to the wild out here in this moment of the night. As the car passed along the hills and disappeared into the night, Ian chuckled to himself. This was real. He was here. This was the night and he was alive. 
Ian stood up and began to slowly walk away from the hilltop in the field. He had a long walk ahead of him yet before he made it home, but he knew that this night he would enjoy every single step and be more alive in the walk. “No more worrying about what might have been and what might be,” Ian told himself, “Not tonight, at least.”

Our Moon and the Galilean Moons

The Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD) today is too darned good not to share. It's an image (credit: Phillip A Cruden) of our Moon along with more distant points of light from the Galilean Moons and Jupiter. Here's the image along with the text from APOD:

"Some of the Solar System's largest moons rose together on February 23. On that night, a twilight pairing of a waning gibbous Moon and Jupiter was captured in this sharp telescopic field of view. The composite of short and long exposures reveals the familiar face of our fair planet's own large natural satellite, along with a line up of the ruling gas giant's four Galilean moons. Left to right, the tiny pinpricks of light are Callisto, Io, Ganymede, [Jupiter], and Europa. Closer and brighter, our own natural satellite appears to loom large. But Callisto, Io, and Ganymede are actually larger than Earth's Moon, while water world Europa is only slightly smaller. In fact, of the Solar System's six largest planetary satellites, only Saturn's moon Titan is missing from the scene."

Goodbye, Edgar Mitchell

Edgar Mitchell, a navy pilot and Apollo 14 astronaut, passed away this week at the age of 85. Mitchell was the 6th human being to walk on the surface of the Moon, spending more than nine hours in the Fra Mauro Highlands region. 

Mitchell spent much of his later life claiming that alien visitation was a real thing and that the governments of the world were testing on alien crafts and biology. Although his views became questionable, it's still important to look back on the life of one of the small group of people who have walked on another planetary surface beyond Earth. Also, in this time of remembrance of Mitchell, I think all of us still get a good laugh out of what is likely the most remembered thing he ever said. In considering the view of Earth from space, specifically looking at the world as a whole from the Moon, Edgar made this globally-conscious and humorous suggestion:

Phobos on My Phone

This pic of the Martian moon Phobos is rockin' on the background of my phone today. I recently downloaded the NASA App, which allows you to set up your phone to display a new picture very day from Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD). The app also let's you download cool ringtones and notification sound-clips that are made of up of sounds from space (rockets launching, the sounds of the planets, and sonified transit data from Kepler light curves). Definitely get this app on your phone. Then you will also be able to rock sweet images, like this one of little Phobos, every single day.

Running with Wolves: A Guided Meditation with The Honest Guys

One of my favorite forms of meditation is a form where the practitioner goes on a journey within their mind. Traveling through wilderness or even through urban constructs, I've found the practice to be an enjoyable way to focus my mind, as I have to create the experience of the journey with my mind and my body. The Honest Guys offer many fantastic guided meditations, including several that guide one on a journey. I just tried one of their new guided meditations and really enjoyed it. This one took me on a journey of running with wolves through the wilderness at night. I could feel myself breathing in the night air and I could smell the forest as I was running. It was a great way to wind down at the end of the day.

If you're looking for a new journey for your own meditations or maybe if you want to give guided meditation a try, then I highly recommend checking this one out. 

Tom Kucy's "Ground Control: Apollo Archive" - a video memorial of Apollo

...And if she faintly glimmers here, 

And paled is her light, 

Yet alway in her proper sphere 

She's mistress of the night. 

- from "The Moon", Henry David Thoreau

This past month, the NASA-affiliated Project Apollo Archive released a large collection of thousands of images from the Apollo Moon missions on their Flickr page. It's a study in awe and wonderment to sit and click through the images. The archive offers amazing views of the Earth from space, still shots of the astronauts hard at work onboard their spacecraft, and some of the most incredible imagery of humans working on the surface of the Moon. I highly recommend taking some time to revel in the images. 

If seeing these images of our world's largest natural satellite is as fantastical for you as it is for me, then you might also enjoy the following film produced by Tom Kucy and titled "Ground Control: Apollo Archive". Kucy took some of the images and edited them together with audio to provide a short film that is absolutely stunning:

Here's some info from Kucy regarding the video:

"GROUND CONTROL is a small personal project, bringing NASA's Apollo Archive photos to life. I utilized Adobe Photoshop, After Effects and Audition to complete this project. In order to achieve the subtle and weightless movement of each scene, I used an animation technique known as parallaxing. I shifted each image element ever so slightly to push forth the notion of how large and vast space truly is. 

I would love to bring more missions to life, and may pursue a small series based on the most memorable Apollo missions."

I for one would love to see Kucy create some more mission-based videos.