NASA’s Icon of Human Narcissism: The 50th Anniversary of Earthrise and What It Means for the 21st Century
By: Barry Vacker
Tags: NASA, Media, Space, Art, Science

Earthrise — it’s one of the most iconic and important photographs ever taken by the human species. As the Apollo 8 astronauts orbited the moon in December of 1968, they turned their cameras back toward Earth and astronaut Bill Anders took the famed photograph—the first widely disseminated photo of Earth in space. But, it’s a photo that is much more than what it seems on the surface. Rather than illustrate our actual place in the universe, the photo was altered by NASA to maintain the illusion of human centrality amid the cosmic void surrounding Earth. Five decades later, NASA’s move has proven prophetic for post-Apollo culture. Earthrise is the first “Earth selfie” and points directly toward the Anthropocene, social media culture, and humanity’s deep narcissism—still pretending to be the center of the universe, the center of all value, purpose, and meaning on Earth and beyond.

After all, we’re the only creatures on Earth to create a planetary network of technology so we can gaze at our ourselves and follow the antics of our species around the world. No other species spends as much time and effort looking at itself as do humans. Considering that 2018 marks the 50th anniversary of Earthrise, perhaps we should revisit the moment to learn what really happened and what it means for the 21st century. (Yes, NASA actually went to the moon and it was not faked.)

Earth as seen on global television via Apollo 8. (Keep in mind, television cameras were much more primitive in 1968.) NASA TV image in the public domain.

Apollo 8's Sublime Moment

Without doubt, Apollo 8 and Earthrise triggered a profoundly sublime moment for humanity in 1968. Apollo 8’s television broadcast from the moon reached one billion viewers. During the journey to the moon, Apollo 8 provided the first image of Earth in space—a grayish orb on television screens. Stunned, the world looked on with awe and wonder. To borrow from Kant and other aesthetic philosophers, we encounter the sublime when there’s a tension between our perceptions and our reason—when our senses are overwhelmed, yet our minds can still order the percepts into knowable, pleasurable, and terrifying concepts. Perhaps the deepest sublime is the sublimated terror many people feel in the face of epic emptinesses and vast voids in the starry skies above.

Since no one had seen Earth from space, Apollo 8 and Earthrise provided an overwhelmingly new perspective on human existence. The image of Earth alone in space was utterly mind-boggling in 1968, an era in which television was relatively new and there was no internet, no Voyager, and no Hubble Space Telescope. With the full-color image of Earthrise, our home planet was knowable and pleasurable, surely a beautiful image to appreciate and contemplate. But, the key to the power, meaning, and effects of Earthrise is the simultaneous sense of wonder and terror. The image was wondrous because of the sheer genius and scientific power it took to get a camera in orbit around the moon—and then see our entire planet floating against the endless black void. That’s where terror enters the picture.

The Cosmic Void

The Apollo 8 astronauts were worldwide heroes and named “Men of the Year” by Time magazine, with the cover depicting their faces against the void of deep space. In so doing, Time subtly illustrated the key issue of Apollo 8 and the Earthrise image — the cosmic void. After all, it seemed the astronauts had conquered the void when they read from Genesis to one billion TV viewers while orbiting the moon. Not only had Apollo 8 “saved the year” of 1968 (as mainstream historians tell us), the astronauts also saved the dominant ideologies on Earth—the belief that we’re central to the story of the universe and its Creator has an eternal destiny for us. The Genesis reading consoled humanity for the sublimated terror felt in seeing Earth alone in the cosmic void.

If that conclusion seems unlikely or implausible, we only have to consider how Apollo 8 and Earthrise were connected to the void and what NASA subsequently did with the image. In an article on the Apollo 8 voyage entitled “The Triumphant Return from the Void,” Time celebrated Earthrise by dedicating an entire page to it with the heading “The Awesome Views from Apollo 8.” Time clearly suggests that Apollo 8 and Earthrise triggered a sublime experience.

With Earth seeming to float in the cosmic void (though in reality it is hurtling through the universe), Apollo 8 and Earthrise provided the human species with its first visual perspective of its true existential condition, namely that we share a tiny planet in a massive universe. Visible in Earthrise are no borders, no nations, no signs of humanity — just the planet’s blue waters, white clouds, and brown and green continents, all amid the blackness of space, beyond which are trillions of galaxies with billions of stars.

Time stated: “In the closing days of 1968, all mankind could exult in the vision of a new universe . . . a new age, that will inevitably reshape man’s view of himself and his destiny.” But if the destiny is unbearable, then it may as well be denied. In the black cosmic void lies the sublimated terror and existential fear that still exists well into the 21st century.

NASA and the Terror of Negative Space

The stars of the Milky Way are not visible in Earthrise because of the bright sunlight reflecting off the light gray surface of the moon. The black starless sky emphasizes the void of deep space. In artistic and aesthetic terms, the blackness surrounding Earth is the negative space that frames the object of contemplation in Earthrise. Humanity is still coming to terms with that negative space, for we know it stretches toward infinity with no vanishing point, unlike traditional painting and photography. That negative space means we humans and our beautiful planet are not the center of the universe, not the center of anything in a cosmos spanning across 100 billion light years. For humanity, so far, that is an unbearable condition. Fear of the void, fear of all that negative space, that’s the existential reason why NASA repositioned Earth above the moon (and not beside it as seen in the photo’s original perspective ).