Seeing earth from space
This experience must be enthralling:
After the groundbreaking test flight, we caught up with Moses to learn about what it was like to see the curvature of the Earth and experience weightlessness in actual space. We also wanted to know how she will use this flight to improve Virgin Galactic’s future customer experience. The company, which promises quick flights to the edge of space, has sold hundreds of tickets on the VSS Unity to paying customers. And as the chief astronaut instructor at Virgin Galactic, Moses will be responsible for training hopeful passengers for the flight she just experienced…
“I felt like the Earth was so beautiful, but even more so than you can describe or can be imagined. I happened to fly on a day where we had snow on the mountains in the southwestern United States. And I remember vividly that appearance of glistening white mountaintops and blue Pacific Ocean and the green of the Earth. I told someone the other day I felt like Earth was wearing her diamonds for us that day, because it was so, so glistening and sharp.
“It just took my breath away. It was amazing. I hope everyone can see it…
“You know the Earth was so curved and the ocean was so massive. I felt like we were just suspended with this God’s-eye view of the world. It was just sharp and beautiful…
“I do feel very much more connected to myself and the people around me and planet Earth. I’m one of those glass-half-full, people-are-good, Earth-is-lovely kind of people. And I feel that even more so now.”
I well remember when we first saw photos of earth taken from space. Even the photos were enough to give a little of that feeling.
Many years ago I saw a film at the local science center called The Dream Is Alive.
It was about the the space program and included video of the earth taken from the space shuttle with an Omnimax camera projected onto an Omnimax (not IMAX) screen. For those not familiar with it, an Omnimax Screen is a very large (maybe 20-25 ft high) spherical segment which partially wraps around the seating. It’s not unlike present day virtual reality.
This is as close as I will ever get to flying in space, but even after so long a time the memory of those images remains striking, profound and both mind-boggling and mind-numbing. I can not imagine what it must be like to experience that in reality.
“The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.” Psalm 19:1 (ESV)
That link goes nowhere I could see.
How about this one?
And, sadly, Trump is destroying Earth. Only 12 years left!
Stewart Brand’s “Whole Earth Catalog” started with an acid flash he had in 1966 while tripping — the burning question, “Why Haven’t We Seen a Photograph of the Whole Earth Yet?” He sold buttons displaying that question.
In 1967 such a photo was released. In 1968 Brand published the first issue of the “Whole Earth Catalog” with that photo on the cover.
Mike, thanks for the photo! –What are those sparkly things in the sky?
This post was quite a coincidence. I only just became fully aware – in the sense of paying real attention – that Blue Origin, and SpaceX had made vertical landings of the reusable propulsion stages, on a more or less regular basis.
I guess I thought they descended on parachutes to land on their sides more or less undamaged, and just didn’t put “reusable launch module” together with a 1950’s-like mental image of a rocket setting back down to the ground fins and engine first.
Guess I have to watch more – any – TV.
The videos of the Blue Origin daytime rocket launches with their almost exhaust free ascents and descents, are breathtakingly beautiful to behold.
Astronaut Edgar Mitchell, the sixth man to walk on the Moon, had a deep spiritual experience when he saw the Earth from space. Later he read up on religions and religious experiences and concluded he had experienced samadhi, the ultimate experience in Hinduism:
The descriptions of samadhi, savikalpa samadhi, were exactly what I felt: it is described as seeing things in their separateness, but experiencing them viscerally as a unity, as oneness, accompanied by ecstasy.
http://www.historydisclosure.com/a-message-of-unity-from-edgar-mitchell/
He took a hard New Age turn and founded the Institute of Noetic Sciences.
Fascinating stuff, huxley. Thanks.
Mrs Whatsit: You’re welcome.
The space program was huge to me as a kid. I lived in Ormond Beach, about 90 miles north of Cape Canaveral. We could feel it when they launched a big one.
Here’s a song which still moves me to tears about the Apollo 11 Moon Landing:
For the Eagle has landed; tell your children when.
Time won’t drive us down to dust again.
–Leslie Fish, “Hope Eyrie”
Apollo 11 commemoration (“Hope Eyrie”)
http://lesliefish.com/frameset1.htm
Leslie Fish is a California specialty — songwriter, sci-fi fan, Pagan, feminist, anarchist, gun rights advocate. Jerry Pournelle turned her into a character, “Jenny Trout,” in the novel, “Fallen Angels.”
Sadly the SJWs have annexed science-fiction. The masters of the Golden Age and Silver Age died off and the SJWs moved in.
There is a decent, minority resistance, holding to good old-fashioned SF storytelling, which once flexed its political muscles as the Sad Puppies, which begat the Rabid Puppies (too long a story). They have established a beachhead in online publishing. I wish them well.
Julie, I’m pretty sure the sparkling ones are planets — NASA has some long distance shots of Earth, and Earth & Moon, where it’s sparkling like that.
https://www.space.com/21627-earth-from-space-pictures-gallery.html
But I was looking more for the Blue Marble type photo.
https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/nasa-captures-epic-earth-image
Reading so much. My 60s childhood, with great sounding Walter Cronkite (the lying Dem; yet who also did 20th Century). Tearing up, with tears. Apollo 8.
https://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/image_feature_1249.html
The Right Stuff talked about the choice to either set up a space station first, or go to the moon first. Too bad the US choose “moon first”. With communism still expanding, the quick inspiration / American superiority (done without personal computers; lots of slide rules) of getting there first.
I’m so glad commercial flights are, at last, moving towards space (the final frontier).
There are lots of Blue Marbles to choose from (SA in upper left made me expand):
https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=blue+marble+photos+of+earth+from+space&qpvt=blue+marble+photos+of+earth+from+space&FORM=IGRE
Thanks, Neo; great topic.
Hahaha. Oh no, here comes NASA again. Just right for me.
They used to call selling tickets for 10k, 50k, 100k a pop and then not delivering after 10+ years, a “pyramid scheme” or just a “con artist scheme”. Take 100k ticket a pop, multiply by 150. Calculate the interest per month at 2.2% annual pr.
Math is hard, for those that tend to fall for Enron/Madoff schemes.
There are lots of Blue Marbles to choose from (SA in upper left made me expand):
What they don’t mention is that the continents are inconsistent in sizes, the color palette is like using sci fi alien world tropes, and much of space art is just that, art and drawn by hand or computers.
https://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/about/people/RSimmon.html
What is the coolest thing you’ve ever done as part of your job at Goddard?
The last time anyone took a photograph from above low Earth orbit that showed an entire hemisphere (one side of a globe) was in 1972 during Apollo 17. NASA’s Earth Observing System (EOS) satellites were designed to give a check-up of Earth’s health. By 2002, we finally had enough data to make a snap shot of the entire Earth. So we did. The hard part was creating a flat map of the Earth’s surface with four months’ of satellite data. Reto Stockli, now at the Swiss Federal Office of Meteorology and Climatology, did much of this work. Then we wrapped the flat map around a ball. My part was integrating the surface, clouds, and oceans to match people’s expectations of how Earth looks from space. That ball became the famous Blue Marble.
I was happy with it but had no idea how widespread it would become. We never thought it would become an icon. I certainly never thought that I would become “Mr. Blue Marble.”
We have since updated the base maps by increasing the resolution and, for 2004, we made a series of monthly maps.
Some of you may be perceptive enough to notice what the implications are.
NASA and the Soviets were too busy sending probes to Venus, Saturn, Mars, and the Sun, to be taking scientific data of the Earth and backside of the Moon. They got more important things to do with your tax money.
My 60s childhood, with great sounding Walter Cronkite (the lying Dem; yet who also did 20th Century). Tearing up, with tears. Apollo 8.
Cronkite was telling the truth, except when he was deceiving, lying, and wrong, right? Haha. I am amazed at how gullible humans make themselves. If the main sewer media tells them something they don’t want to hear, like Tet Offensive or anti American bullsh, they think “oh, I am not gonna believe that”. But let the main sewer media tell you what you do like to hear and you’re all… even Trum was dumb enough to fall for the whole “FBI are loyalists, regardless of who appointed them via the power of Demoncrat Hussein”. Well, some are and some aren’t, Mueller wasn’t one of the former. The loyalist FBI would be the semi religious people like Church of Jesus LDS folks.
I’m so glad commercial flights are, at last, moving towards space (the final frontier).
I wouldn’t invest in Space X. Or any equivalent. They’re like Kickstarter projects about space.
There is a decent, minority resistance, holding to good old-fashioned SF storytelling, which once flexed its political muscles as the Sad Puppies, which begat the Rabid Puppies (too long a story).
The hilarious part is that Larry Correia is a Mormon or Latter Day Saint. That’s something conservative Republican Evangelicals and Leftist moonwalking blow hole Mari weed snorters may not be able to take.
This post was quite a coincidence. I only just became fully aware – in the sense of paying real attention – that Blue Origin, and SpaceX had made vertical landings of the reusable propulsion stages, on a more or less regular basis.
I guess I thought they descended on parachutes to land on their sides more or less undamaged, and just didn’t put “reusable launch module” together with a 1950’s-like mental image of a rocket setting back down to the ground fins and engine first.
Guess I have to watch more – any – TV.
The videos of the Blue Origin daytime rocket launches with their almost exhaust free ascents and descents, are breathtakingly beautiful to behold.
I saw one of those vertical landings… hilarious entertainment I must say. Elon Musk surely delivers on the combust mercury dealings. Just watch his Tesla stock fall and rise according to his pronouncements. The guy would be a clown if he wasn’t worth billions.
Kate on March 18, 2019 at 3:27 pm at 3:27 pm said:
“The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.” Psalm 19:1 (ESV)
Another funny tidbit is that Von Braun of V2 Nazi fame, who was imported into the US and absolved of war crimes liability from Nuremburg via Operation paperclip, ordered his tombstone to carry Psalm 19:01. One of the Founding Nazi scientists of NASA, has the “firmament above proclaims his handwork” on his tombstone and that is it.
All the world is a stage, and you all are mere actors upon it.
“Once ze rockets go up, who cares vear ze come down?
Zat’s not my department,
says Werner Von Braun” (Tom Lehrer) “… und I’m learning Chinese…”
Slovakia is hosting a space conference tomorrow, 20 March; but it’s serious for business folk, tickets $180 or more. An IBM colleague will be speaking, also many others. Good little home page video (semi computer generated, I’m sure)
https://www.vytahconf.com/?fbclid=IwAR0AtCXf8G_xzm-xkhD1WmuwGH0H1Nxn5RSO0esQb8yXhR2OODBaytgvfDU