The last page of The Economist magazine traditionally contains an obituary. The June 15, 2024 edition was for William (Bill) Anders, a former Apollo 8 astronaut who died on June 7th, 2024, at age 90 (“Obituary, William Anders”).
On December 21, 1968, Anders, along with Frank Borman and Jim Lovell, blasted off from Cape Kennedy in Florida on a reconnaissance trip to the Moon. Their mission was to orbit it several times and take photos of its surface for a future landing site. The chances were one in three that they would not make it back.
Anders was unimpressed by what he saw of the Moon. “Boring”, “stark”, “beat-up” and “ugly” were the words that he used to describe it. The dark side was “so intensely black,” noted The Economist’s obituary, that it was scary. Even as the astronauts continued their orbit, the first lunar sunrise was only a qualified “interesting, with low rugged mountains showing through a purplish haze, but beyond that it looked like nothing so much as a grey, dirty beach.”
“On their fourth lunar orbit,” as their camera lens filled with shades of grey, “over the Moon’s horizon rose a delicate blue orb, shining and wreathed in white cloud. The day was Christmas Eve, and it looked like a Christmas-tree ornament, one that could break just as easily. It was small, gorgeous, but almost insignificant. And it was home.” It was also a Christmas present like no other.
“Oh my God, [Anders] cried, look at that picture over there! There’s the Earth coming up. Wow, is that pretty!” So, through the one window that was not smeared with leaky sealant, he took three photographs, all that could be spared of Earth from the designated purpose of the mission. One of those photos became the iconic “Earthrise” photo in which humanity realized this was the first time that they could actually see the place in the universe where they lived.
“Pretty” became a profound understatement. That Earthrise experience changed Bill Anders. From the orbiter, he couldn’t stop looking at Earth, couldn’t sleep, and, subsequently, his life took a new direction. He gave up his Catholicism and decided that all further space exploration should be directed only to benefit the planet and humanity, not for such self-aggrandizing adventures as trips to Mars.
Taken from nearly 400,000 km away, Earthrise was a revelation, an epiphany that put into perspective virtually everything we think and do as human beings. From the very first moment that the rest of humanity saw this photograph, we stood outside ourselves, examining who we were from a distance. This is the kind of separation that engenders the clarity in sages and prophets and in those with sufficient insight to understand who we really are and what we are really doing. It is the rare position from which enlightenment occurs.
Society in the 1960s and ’70s showed some hint of possible enlightenment. The Vietnam war, the Cold War, and the nuclear missile crisis were clearly defined as object lessons in what we should not be doing. For some insightful people, authoritarianism, materialism and competition were rejected as brutal, exploitative and hateful. The delicate sphere of Earth, so unique and fragile and precious in the black immensity of space, inspired environmentalism—“One Earth, One Chance” became a self-evident mantra. And a flash of hope, like it was emerging from the dark side of the Moon, illuminated those who were idealistic optimists.
In the years since 1968, little of that optimism remains. Capitalism has not been humanized. The Cold War has heated up to a temperature of near-ignition, an expansionist Russia has invaded a sovereign Ukraine country, the United Nations as an international government has essentially been incapacitated by a disregard for the principles of law, the milieu of digital media has created a tribalism of seemingly irreconcilable differences, and the trajectory of environmental deterioration has worsened to the extent that it now may be both irremediable and unstoppable.
The impact of the Earthrise photo has faded, or maybe it was always an illusion based on the faulty assumption that the Christmas Eve photo of 1968 was an epiphany, and that humanity was actually capable of the change which it could have inspired. The sobering possibility is that we expect too much of ourselves. Although we do have moments when we glimpse prospects that are promising and uplifting, they are experienced by too few and are forgotten too quickly. When our habits and character—both individually and collectively—combine with a materialistic culture intended to placate the deep insecurity of a furtive and timid little hominid, the momentum is just too much for any photograph to change.
Bill Anders died at age 90. And perhaps the inspirational power of his Earthrise photograph—at age 56—also died with him.
Ray Grigg for Sierra Quadra
Top photo credit: cropped Earthrise image AS08-13-2329 – Photo by astronaut Bill Anders, Apollo 8, Image courtesy of the Earth Science and Remote Sensing Unit, NASA Johnson Space Center