“Three things cannot be long hidden:
The sun, the moon, and the truth.”
— Buddha
Greetings from Luna — weather’s fine!
NASA just released 8,400 high-quality pictures of the Apollo moon missions, and they’re fantastic — including dozens of angles and perspectives we’ve never seen before.
In a way, a lot of them remind me of road trip photos I took during one particular epic journey to a renaissance festival in ‘02 — here are my friends checking the map, posing with ridiculous roadside attractions, checking the oil, setting up the tent at the campsite.
The camera that took some of those shots. Drooool.
Only this was pretty much the most epic road trip ever, and our road-tripping friends are shaving on the moon lander, setting up scientific equipment, making faces for the camera, looking out at Earthrise, adjusting the American flag, looking out towards the endless depths of space. I got to see some of the Hasselblads used to make these photos while at the Air & Space Museum Annex in Chantilly, Va., which was a pretty killer moment for this inveterate camera geek.
Your editor, checking things off the bucket list. Are space selfies > pope selfies? Let’s find out!
Seeing these Apollo photos, in all their road-trip realness, makes me incredibly excited for the exploration adventures to come.
Why? These photos are a wonderful reminder that when we go to space, we’re not bringing godlike heroes, morally spotless and propaganda-poster perfect. We’re bringing real people: joke-cracking, camera-mugging, smart, hopeful people. We’re not bringing robots; we’re bringing earthlings.
And it’s going to be a fantastic ride.
