The Apollo 8 capsule was recovered on December 27 1968 carrier USS Yorktown picked up the astronauts and they returned to the United States So too did their film Earthrise Returns to Earth At the Manned Spaceflight Center in Houston Texas Apollo photography director Richard Underwood was responsible for processing the images In a time long before digital cameras became mainstream film had to be treated with chemicals in order to produce usable photographs When the rolls of film from Apollo 8 arrived in Houston the original negatives were immediately copied and
A view of Earth captured by the Apollo 8 crew rear of photo was broadcast on a television in the mission operations control room on December 25 placed into a secure vault as backups Then the lab began turning the raw negatives into finished photographs Before the mission Underwood had foreseen the importance of a photo of Earth rising over the lunar horizon I argued hard for a shot of Earthrise and we had impressed upon the astronauts that we definitely wanted it As soon as he saw the processed photo he knew he had been right When I actually saw the picture after they returned it it was even better than I had anticipated Underwood wasn’t the only one to recognize the photo’s significance Of the hundreds of photos shot on Apollo 8 Earthrise drew by far the most attention The image was soon featured
in both Time and Life magazines two of the biggest publications tracking the progress of 1960s space exploration Upon the astronauts return the crew brought a framed print of Earthrise to President Lyndon B Johnson Newspaper editorials reflected upon the photo’s connections to religion international conflict and humanity’s place in the universe The picture showing Earth as a small fragile and uniquely habitable corner of the universe became a potent symbol of the environmental movement Decades later Vice President Al Gore’s Oscar-winning documentary about climate change An Inconvenient Truth used Earthrise as one of its central images RICHARD UNDERWOOD 1927 2011 Richard Underwood who led the team that modified cameras and trained astronauts for the Apollo Program began his government career in the US Navy during World War II 1939 1945 After the war he volunteered as an observer and photographer for atomic bomb tests He went on to study aerial photography and worked for the US Army Corps of Engineers He joined NASA in the early 1960s and he quickly put his talents to work interfacing between the astronauts and NASA’s photo labs Photographing the Frontiers of Space The continued resonance of Earthrise decades after it was taken in orbit around the moon speaks to the power of space photography Since its founding in 1958 the National Aeronautics and Space Administration NASA has documented its missions and gathered
engineering data using cameras These photographs have also served the twin goals of scientific discovery and public outreach Scientists can study space photographs to learn more about planetary geology the clouds of the gas giants the nature of stars and galaxies and humanity’s influence on Earth The public can see these images to appreciate the ingenuity of engineers the daring of astronauts and the beauty of the universe Taking photographs in space presents unique challenges High radiation levels extremely high and low temperatures and the vacuum of space demand careful engineering in the camera hardware For human missions camera mechanisms must be designed so an astronaut in a bulky pressure suit can accurately aim and shoot And after photos are taken they must sometimes be transmitted millions of miles back to Earth The development of digital camera technology was spurred by this need for easily transmitted photos The history of NASA itself can be traced through the agency’s most significant images In the 1960s astronauts brought cameras to the surface of the moon In the 1970s robotic probes sent back photographs from Earth’s neighbors in the solar system The focus turned to Earth itself as the space shuttle gave astronauts an incredible viewing platform in orbit in the 1980s
