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

exaMINING the ICONIC aND reDISCOVerING the phOtOGraphY Of 337
SpaCe expLOratION IN CONtext tO the hIStOrY Of phOtOGraphY
torqued, curving, rust-colored steel plates. from an elevated position, Sequence
resemble two gigantic violin scrolls standing back to back. 89 as I journey inward
within one of the spirals, I experience an enclosed elliptical space where shafts
of light cascade down the sides of the steel walls. I notice how the sunlight
plays upon the scale of the space within the ellipse. When I move back into the
wall’s shadows, I discover a remarkable angled slit, an apparent exit. I exit and
proceed through a narrow, disorienting corridor of curved steel, until I discover
another interior space, similar yet diferent than the frst. I retrace my steps back
to the frst only to realize that this time the path has lead me to yet another
possible exit. Moving within these one of a kind structures, I could not have
anticipated my journey or my exit. as with the commitment to an interprative
photographic documentation of people and place during the next 50 years in
space exploration, we cannot begin to know where our eforts might lead.
appeNDIx
In all the history of mankind, there will be only one generation
that will be the frst to explore the solar system, one
generation for which, in childhood, the planets are distant
and indistinct discs moving through the night sky, and for
which, in old age, the planets are places, diverse new worlds
in the course of exploration.
—Carl Sagan 90
as I contemplate the next 50 years of space exploration photography, I
fnd myself thinking about the serendipitous relevance between two rather
unremarkable images from the photographic annals of project apollo. the
very frst image, recorded from the frst launch of a Saturn V, came from apollo
4’s robotically controlled onboard camera. It is the image of a waxing crescent
planet earth in November 1967. 91 Some fve years later in December 1972, the
very last image made by one of the apollo 17 crew (before stowing the camera
away for reentry) was of a waxing crescent planet earth. 92 perhaps, these two
images foreshadowed the next nearly 40 years of human spacefight. the images
89. tom Christie and holly Meyers, “Steeling beauty, richard Serra’s advance party,” LA Weekly,
august 15, 2007, http://www.laweekly.com/art+books/art/steeling-beauty/17007/ (accessed february
16, 2008).
90. Dava Sobel, The Planets (New York, NY:Viking, the penguin Group, 2005), pre-contents page
(not numbered).
91. See apollo 4 images at the Lunar and planetary Institute Apollo Image Atlas – 70mm Hasselblad
Image catalog, http://www.lpi.usra.edu/resources/apollo/catalog/70mm/magazine/?01.
92. See apollo 17 images at the Lunar and planetary Institute Apollo Image Atlas – 70mm Hasselblad
Image catalog, http://www.lpi.usra.edu/resources/apollo/catalog/70mm/magazine/?152.