Going to the Moon… and Discovering Earth | StarTalk

So we try to think what are the drivers that created this change of awareness, because no one really does that without feeling guilt. Even if you did throw things out the window with disregard, in fact, there's some interesting scenes in Mad Men, which of course takes place in the 60s. You just see them doing things.

"Whap! Did we do that? People walk into an elevator smoking a cigarette. Did we do that?" And they finish a picnic and they toss everything on the ground. Did we do that?

So, why did all this change? What happened in the late 60s? We go to 1968, the most turbulent year of a turbulent decade: assassinations, the Tet Offensive, the anti-war movement. And in that year, this photo was published; yes, Earthrise, Apollo 8. They went to the moon, orbited a dozen, 15 times, and then came back, snapped this picture.

This was published in 1968, and we see Earth as nature intended us to view it, like with oceans and land and clouds. We go to the moon to explore the moon, and we discover Earth for the first time. I looked at what happened after this photo was taken in the four years that we were going to the moon: ’68, ’69, ’70, ’71, and into ’72. Excuse me, five years, and of ’68 into ’72.

That's when all of this happened. When was the Environmental Protection Agency founded? ’70. 1970. Okay, when was they founded? ’70, 1970. When we were going to the moon, net, and we had other issues in 1970, right?

Right, there’s fascinations and unrest on college campuses, and all of a sudden, people started thinking about Earth’s Earth. Right? 1972—the catalytic converter is introduced, leaded gases banned, DDT is banned 1973. All these early years of the decade—the Comprehensive Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act—all was in that period.

So I’m thinking, we go to space, and well, why are we going to space? There’s one of the really cool things about that image. It was internet, you know the NASA missions are so scripted. They, you know, they flat out, yeah, yeah, yeah, that was unanticipated.

And when you listen to the dialogue that took place, it was, "Hey, get the camera quick!" No one had actually said, "Hey, we’re gonna come around the backside of the moon and see." They didn’t think. And I think of the idea that that appreciation, that the narrative power of that actually was more important than the mission part of it.