Earth Before Earth Day
“Long before man journeyed to the moon and looked back at the tiny, fragile planet that houses humanity, remote orbiters were sending back pictures of home. Sent to scope out potential landing sites on the Moon, the series of five Lunar Orbiters also sent back the earliest views of Earth from another celestial body. This image, taken in 1966 by Lunar Orbiter 1, is among the first views of Earth from the Moon. In the black-and-white image, a crescent Earth floats majestically behind the lumpy surface of the Moon.”
Happy Earth Day, Keith. Very nice view of the pre-Earth Day Earth. Always have enjoyed your blog, since the old RIF Watch days.
A NASA Space Report, http://www.youtube.com/watc… (at 2:00) from 1966 describes the Lunar Orbiter mission showing the photos of the Moon and one of the photos of the Earth rising above the Moon. Its been said here that nothing close to modern photo editing tools existed in the ’60s but also display was on TV sets with 525 scan lines. Someone can correct me but I would guess the resolution of the re-processed data is now 10 times better. Great work done by LOIRP. It is equal to the efforts to save cinematic masterpieces wasting away on celluloid reels.