
Who Took the Legendary Earthrise Photo from Apollo 8? - sohkamyung
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/who-took-legendary-earthrise-photo-apollo-8-180967505/?no-ist
======
fjarlq
The Earthrise reconstruction by Wright and Gallagher:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dE-
vOscpiNc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dE-vOscpiNc)

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ElCapitanMarkla
Video of the Earthrise he's talking about in the article \-
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dE-
vOscpiNc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dE-vOscpiNc)

I just finished Andrew's A Man on the Moon book a couple of weeks ago and I
throughly enjoyed it.

~~~
js2
Thanks. Not sure why the article doesn't link to the video. BTW, there's also
an HBO miniseries made from the book that's well worth watching:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_the_Earth_to_the_Moon_(mi...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_the_Earth_to_the_Moon_\(miniseries\))

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reacweb
Interesting story. I remember having heard on radio another story about tang
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tang_(drink)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tang_\(drink\))).
Excessive consumption was causing flatulence that was the cause of a dispute
during a space mission. I was not able to find anything about it using google.

~~~
jgrahamc
Skylab had a flatulence problem:
[https://history.nasa.gov/SP-4208/ch16.htm](https://history.nasa.gov/SP-4208/ch16.htm)

------
nyc111
Just to clarify, the earth does not rise on the moon (just wobbles). The earth
appears to rise because the orbiter circling the moon.

~~~
Buttons840
I had a friend who believed the moon landings were fake because of the Earth
rise. He rightfully explained it could not happen. I told him the Earth rise
happened while they were in orbit (or sub-orbit, whatever), and so he looked
it up, realized he was wrong, and gave up on the idea that the moon landings
were fake just like that. He had mistakenly believed the Earth rise footage
was taken from the surface of the moon. It's always nice to see someone
willing to change their mind in the face of new evidence.

------
bolololo1
Why are there no visible stars in the background?

~~~
gcthomas
Because it is daytime.

(If the camera exposure was set for the faint stars, then the sun-lit scene
would be hugely overexposed.)

~~~
JPLeRouzic
I am not sure this is the complete explanation. On Earth we do not see stars
because of light scattering (Rayleight and Mie) [0]. In the outer space there
is no scattering and the light from each star represents a tiny point in the
picture, but this point is bright. After all it comes from a sun. But the
original image [1] has a dark background as well.

Maybe it is due to the fact that jpeg compression losses small artifacts or
something else.

On some pictures it is possible to see tiny white points such as in [2]

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffuse_sky_radiation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffuse_sky_radiation)

[1]
[https://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/alsj/a410/AS8-14-...](https://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/alsj/a410/AS8-14-2383HR.jpg)

[2]
[https://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/alsj/a410/AS8-15-...](https://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/alsj/a410/AS8-15-2561HR.jpg)

(some non important edits, including changing link 2 which was a thumb view)

~~~
gcthomas
We see stars during solar eclipses, so it is the scattering of the light of
the sun that obscures them. It really _is_ the exposure issue, since the
surface brightness of the Earth is that of full daylight and so full daytime
exposures were needed. Stars will never show up unless longer exposures are
used.

Here is an over exposed photo of Earth by Apollo 16 from the lunar surface,
with stars visible:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Apollo_16_UV_photo_of_Ear...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Apollo_16_UV_photo_of_Earth_rotated.jpg)

~~~
JPLeRouzic
I may not have been so clear (English is not my native tongue, etc), but you
repeat what I wrote:

* it is the scattering of the light of the sun that obscures them

* On some pictures, stars are visible (I even provided a link)

However having said that you also say "It really _is_ the exposure issue" but
it has nothing to do with light scattering?

~~~
moioci
I think light scattering is an atmospheric phenomenon.

------
LV-426
I'm glad they got the Earthrise Photo, because otherwise, six months before
Apollo 11 gave the world a line which even impressed the Soviets, Apollo 8
would be remembered for this cringey, inane stuff[1]:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ToHhQUhdyBY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ToHhQUhdyBY)

[1] To avoid misunderstanding: this isn't an atheist/anti-religion post, it's
about the aptness of such an utterance by personnel on a top scientific
mission, from one of the world's top scientific agencies.

Edit: * sigh * and insta-downvote bot strikes again

~~~
throwanem
The concern has been raised before:
[https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-
courts/FSupp/3...](https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-
courts/FSupp/312/434/1468840/)

(eta: Nothing earns downvotes on Hacker News like complaining about downvotes
does. If getting downvoted here bothers you - and God alone knows why it would
- then complaining about downvotes is a habit worth avoiding.)

~~~
LV-426
Thanks. I wasn't aware of that. I just remember the first time I ever saw that
footage, couldn't believe what I was hearing, and haven't forgotten it.

My own objection isn't even about government/state promotion of religion -
though I'm not particularly a fan of that - it's that a scientific body like
NASA comes out with "God created Earth".

And I wouldn't even mind _that_ if NASA stated it was their official position.
Then anyone is free to decide on their scientific credibility.

Instead we had an organization making itself look ridiculous by unnecessarily
pandering to beliefs it couldn't possibly officially hold.

~~~
throwanem
You are conflating the official position of the organization with a statement
made by one of its employees on company time. The linked decision thoroughly
considers this point as well, and finds it unconvincing. NASA's official
allegiance in matters of faith was found to be as nonexistent as befits a US
government agency. The court recognizes that sometimes people say things of
their own accord, for which they alone are responsible. It seems a sensible
enough analysis.

By modern mores, of course such a thing would be a firing offense and the seed
crystal around which much Buzzfeed and Twitter would briefly accrete. (It
would be a firing offense _because_ it would be, &c., &c. I suppose it's only
a mercy none of the Apollo 8 crew were seen in public to wear shirts their
friends had made for them.) But we here discuss a historical event, now some
fifty years in the past. The application of modern mores to historical events
is called "presentism", a word whose pejorative connotation is well earned by
the fact that such tendentious analysis generates only heat, never light.

And leaving fallacies of historiography aside, as far as I'm concerned, the
employees of any past or future NASA capable of carrying out a manned lunar
mission can quote whatever scripture they like from lunar orbit, because it
strikes me as absurd unto risibility to be more concerned with their quoting
scripture than with their doing so _from lunar orbit_. But I am certainly a
very strange man, and will not in any case be consulted, and what people say
will continue for probably some time to outweigh unto negligibility what those
same people do. So it goes.

~~~
LV-426
> You are conflating the official position of the organization with a
> statement made by one of its employees on company time.

1\. It was not one person, it was everyone on board.

2\. Describing NASA trained professionals, paid by NASA, in their NASA gear
and NASA hardware, _representing NASA_ on a monumental, history-making, multi-
billion dollar NASA mission into deep space as mere "employees on company
time" is beyond ridiculous, frankly.

~~~
throwanem
Three employees, then. Did you have a substantive response to make? I mean, I
understand that you're not satisfied with how the events of Apollo 8 played
out. What I don't understand is whence comes the belief, which you seem to
cherish quite strongly, that your satisfaction or lack thereof is of any
relevance to those events.

~~~
LV-426
> Did you have a substantive response to make?

Did you?

> I understand that you're not satisfied with how the events of Apollo 8
> played out. What I don't understand is whence comes the belief, which you
> seem to cherish quite strongly, that your satisfaction or lack thereof is of
> any relevance to those events.

I understand that you're not satisfied with my posts about how Apollo 8 played
out. What I don't understand is whence comes the belief, which you seem to
cherish quite strongly, that your satisfaction or lack thereof is of any
relevance to anything.

~~~
throwanem
So, no.

