Photograph: Harrison Schmitt/NasaĪround this time the Lindisfarne Association invited Apollo 9 astronaut Rusty Schweickart to their annual conference, to speak to them about his Earth orbital flight. The 'blue marble' photo of the Earth taken from Apollo 17. Shortly afterwards Friends of the Earth was formed by David Brower and other campaigners who felt that if there was one thing the Earth needed it was friends. His actions would later lead to the founding of Earth Day – an annual celebration of awareness and appreciation of Earth's natural environment that is still held today in more than 175 countries. For MacLeish these images suddenly revealed us all as "brothers who know now they are truly brothers… riders on the Earth together".īill Anders's 1968 Earthrise image also captured the attention of peace activist John McConnell, who printed it on flags and handed them out in Central Park, New York, the following summer as Apollo 11 became the first mission to land on the moon. The Whole Earth Catalogue ran into the mid-80s, when Brand's concept for a "self-sustaining, critical information service" would find a new platform in Usenet newsgroups on the internet, and eventually on the world wide web.Īmerican poet Archibald MacLeish, also influenced by these visions of the whole Earth from space, penned an essay in the New York Times, as Apollo 8 was heading home in December 1968, pointing out the eternal loveliness of such pictures of Earth from space. One such person was Stewart Brand, who self-published his ecologically themed Whole Earth Catalogue the same year, with a colour image of the entire Earth seen from space on the cover.īrand's vision was for his new quarterly magazine to create a "self-sustaining, critical information service", and he soon nurtured it into a forum for the exchange of ideas suggested by the readers themselves. They prompted many into thinking differently about our home planet. Such images led one commentator to conclude that "on the way to the moon we'd discovered the Earth". Anders's Apollo 8 portrait of our vibrant-blue planet, juxtaposed against the barren, brown-grey horizon of the moon, drew attention to Earth's apparent fragility.
Just four years separated Blue Marble from another profound Apollo picture – Earthrise, captured by Bill Anders on Christmas Eve 1968. For 40 years it has been used to change minds, behaviours and political policies. Subsequently, this single image was embraced by everyone from NGOs working in the developing world to the environmental movements seeking to protect our planet. On a rare, relatively cloudless day, so many human histories, causes and stories were on show in one view.
Below it the entire African land mass arced downwards towards the cradle of civilisation in the Middle East, with the edge of southern Europe right at the bottom. Journeying southwards, towards the moon, Schmitt had seen his home planet upside down, with the continent of Antarctica sprawling over the top.
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