First Photo of Earth Taken from the Moon
On August 23, 1966, Lunar Orbiter I captured the first images of our planet from deep space.
Photographing Earth wasn’t the mission. It wasn’t even considered until the craft was out in space.
The Lunar Orbiter program was launched in 1966, and aimed at capturing images of the moon’s surface to plan possible landing sites. As NASA made preparations, they discovered that Boeing and Eastman Kodak had been working on exactly what they needed – a spacecraft with an onboard camera system.
Lunar Orbiter I launched on August 10, 1966, and 92 hours later it was orbiting the moon. It was a flying photo lab – with a camera system taking up about one-third of the ship. The onboard camera had dual lenses that took two photos at once. While one lens took medium-resolution wide-angle images, the other captured high-quality closeups of these areas in greater detail. The unmanned machinery then exposed, developed, and processing the film, all while orbiting the moon amidst extreme hot and cold temperatures.
Once the photos were processed, an electron beam scanned each of them and then transmitted them back to Earth over radio signals. Four other Lunar Orbiters followed the first, and together they mapped 99 percent of the moon.
Scientists at NASA used these photos to investigate 20 potential landing sites. To do so, they made giant prints, laid them on the floor, and walked on them to figure out which would work best.
While the mission was going smoothly, some at NASA debated pointing the Lunar Orbiter’s camera at Earth. It wasn’t planned ahead of time and was a significant risk. There was a chance the craft wouldn’t turn back toward the moon. Eventually, NASA officials decided they really wanted the picture and agreed no one would get in trouble if the camera didn’t reposition correctly. So on August 23, the Lunar Orbiter captured the earthrise – our planet rising above the moon’s horizon.
Once it was received back on Earth, the photo was made into posters that were widely dispersed. When their mission was over, the Lunar Orbiters were crashed into the moon so their signals wouldn’t interfere with later missions.
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What a great historical fact.! I truly enjoy these posts each day. Keep it up! This just confirms that stamps are a great way to keep up with history.
These historical facts are great I really enjoy them. I wish there was a link to post them on Face Book so other people could enjoy them to.
We have added buttons for printing, email, and the popular social media sites to each “This Day in History.” Thank you for the suggestion!
Thanks for the information, the Mystic team. Always look forward to reading each days History lesson and seeing the associated stamp material.
So where is the picture? I think you missed an opportunity here to present that also. Your article is incomplete without it.
Agreed. https://www.mysticstamp.com/Products/United-States/1371/USA/
I agree. I went to the site expecting to see a beautiful photograph of Earth but only saw an out of focus shot of the Moon. Mr. Ramsey was correct: “you missed an opportunity”.
Thanks for this great moment in history. Remember it well!
Thank you for this great service. I love reading a little bit of history each day and hope you continue sending it.
It was a great leap!!!!!!
Thanks again for the great history lesson!!
John
This endeavor is almost too much for the average person to grasp. Very interesting!
https://www.mysticstamp.com/Products/United-States/1371/USA/
I enjoy the information and plan to share a number of the articles with the area stamp club. Keep it up.
This stamp and many more like it chronicled the wonderful age of space exploration and discovery during the 1960s and early 70s. It is a shame that our country decided it was too expensive and dangerous to continue those amazing accomplishments. Can you imagine how many calculations by hand and mechanical drawings were required to perform these incredible feats of science and industry when the best computers did not have the capacity a smart phone has today and it took weeks to program them to do simple tasks? Remember, we did not even have calculators then, just slide rules – always with the danger of getting the decimal place wrong.