Remembering the Space Age. - Black Vault Radio Network (BVRN)

exaMINING the ICONIC aND reDISCOVerING the phOtOGraphY Of 281
SpaCe expLOratION IN CONtext tO the hIStOrY Of phOtOGraphY
Pete Conrad, Apollo 12: November 19, 1969. (Alan Bean/NASA)
1996, and a full planetary view of Saturn and its myriad of rings by the Cassini
spacecraft in 2006. 18
In further examining the causal relationship between the emergence of an
image that becomes iconic and its ability to sustain itself,William Ivins’s analysis of
“an exactly repeatable” report of an event (in this case a photographic one) can
provide some context. Ivins writes that “the role of the exactly repeatable pictorial
statement and its syntaxes resolves itself into what, once stated, is the truism
that at any given moment the accepted report of an event is of greater importance
than the event, for what we think about and act upon is the symbolic report and
18. this short list is based on what I believe represents classic iconic space exploration imagery.