It might seem silly to assign much worth to the emotional power of photos made by future astronauts. The best of these images will become tokens of our wanderlust - not to mention reliable moneymakers in the gift shops of planetariums and space centers. But it will surely continue to stoke our enthusiasm for venturing beyond our natal world.
This, the “visual poetry” of exploration, may not do much to further our scientific understanding.
Yes, they can document a scene, but they can’t gauge the emotional tug of the pictures they make.īut as we develop the ability to travel to other solar system worlds, we will inevitably stumble into vistas that will resonate with us: stark panoramas that capture a feeling of astonishment and images that don’t just show us a landscape, but take us there. However, with the exception of photos snapped by astronauts, our pictorial inventory of the solar system has been made with the dead eyes of cameras bolted to uncrewed spacecraft or rovers. Thumb through any astronomy textbook and you will see all of these things.
#Little space age Patch#
To those you can add a few detailed photos of a small patch of Venus, various flyby portraits of fragile-looking asteroids, and, of course, broad-brush views of planets and satellites taken from distances of a few thousand miles or more. We still don’t have equivalent photos of humans on Mars, although orbiters and rovers have given us close-up views of the Red Planet’s topography for half a century. Behind Aldrin are the dusty hills of what he called a “magnificent desolation.” It was a visual statement that humans had made their first foray into the final frontier. The standouts in this collection include the imprint of a boot in the lunar dust and Neil Armstrong’s full-body portrait of Buzz Aldrin in his helmet and space suit. We’ve made a start, beginning with the Apollo Program and its beguiling, close-up photos of our natural satellite.
#Little space age series#
The solar system will be captured in a series of iconic scenes, a collection of images that will shape how we think of our own galactic neighborhood.īut wait! Hasn’t that already occurred? Haven’t we already seen what the solar system has to offer? As humanity develops the ability to travel to and wander around nearby worlds, we will see and photograph spectacular landscapes and novel views that will come to define our nearby space environment. By the end of the century, we will enter a second Space Age: an extended period during which humans will undertake our own exploration of the solar system. We are currently concluding the first Space Age, marked by landings on the Moon and robotic forays to other worlds. While you may think that, logically speaking, there can only be a single Age of Discovery, that’s not true. There is always a “right time” for pioneers who, by definition, work at the edge of the possible. It could not have happened earlier because it depended on improvements in shipbuilding that allowed repeated crossings of the oceans.Ī century later, with yet better technology, replicating these accomplishments became trivial. The Age of Discovery was the product of a special time, a period in European history when it was barely possible - and still highly dangerous - to chart the world. Globes became something more than minimally useful household furniture. Explorers and merchants visited and mapped the majority of the temperate world’s coastlines. Our understanding of where and how the continents were arranged was completely transformed. But over the span of a single human lifetime, geographic knowledge grew faster than bamboo. In 1450, world maps drawn in Europe had only a few sketchy indications of West Africa and the Far East.
#Little space age full#
Improved sailing ships carried profit-minded crews into uncharted seas, revealing the full extent of Earth. In the last decades of the 15th century, Western Europe experienced a metaphorical Big Bang - a sudden explosion of geographical knowledge that was later dubbed the Age of Discovery.
0 kommentar(er)
