Earth's First Selfie | Generation X

With you watching on a dark December night, the final Apollo mission blasts off. As the astronauts leave Earth behind, they do something remarkable: they take a family photo. As the astronauts were leaving Earth, within just a few hours, they were able to turn their cameras back around and look at the Earth. They were at the appropriate distance; the time was just perfect for them to be able to see that whole illuminated globe.

It's us. All of us. The entire human race in one picture. Look at ourselves, our Earth. This photograph was taken during the flight of Apollo 17. It shows our Earth moving through a void—our world of war and earthquakes, but also peace and beauty. All of it, and all of us, so close together, so small in the universe.

NASA is doing this incredible project to send people away from Earth, but what we actually end up doing is looking back and saying we're all part of this tiny little sphere—like seeing ourselves in a mirror for the first time. Billions of people, all one family.

If you're a kid in school and you look at a map, it's all borders, and every country is a different color. This thing was one world. It just felt very new, even though it was the oldest thing around you.