Opinion | In 1968, They Saw Earth From the Moon for the First Time

We’ve been spending all these revolutions looking at the moon. Then as we come around this uninviting place, we look up and there’s the Earth. It’s 240,000 miles away. It was small enough. You could cover it with your thumbnail. And everything we held dear — our families, our country — everything held dear was back on that blue planet. That was a sense of: How in the world could this little ball exist in this vast universe of nothing? The fact that the lunar horizon was so ugly and stark — that amplified the beauty of the Earth. “Wow, is that pretty!” “Hand me a roll of color, quick.” “Oh, man. That’s great.” “Where is it? Quick.” We were all awestruck by the difference: the beauty of the Earth in its color against the blackness of space. “Oh, that’s a beautiful shot.” We had never had any discussion of taking an Earthrise picture before the flight or during the flight. And yet, when we came over the moon on this flight, we looked up and there was this beautiful blue ball in the background. It all struck us immediately. Get that picture. This is the best picture we’ve got in the whole flight. It gave a contrast. It said that, hey, here are people looking from a different planet, looking back at what is our home.