Abstract:
In 1946 a seized German V-2 missile was mounted on the side of a rocket and launched into space from the brown sands of New Mexico. The mission of this launch, on the cusp of the Cold War, had no malicious intention. The rocket was loaded not with explosives but with a small automatic camera the sole purpose of which was to photograph images of Earth from outer space. High above the beloved American South West, the grainy black and white imagery revealed, for the first time, the curve of the Earth from outside the atmospheric cradle. Those who had survived World War II were treated to the sight of clouds hanging effortlessly over the same brown sands from which the missile managed to liberate itself. The image is not of the kind we are used to today – there is little clarity, no colour and the rocket could not travel far enough to capture the Earth in its entirety – yet advanced photographic techniques were not needed to trigger its significance: humans had successfully used technology to break free of the atmosphere, and had disseminated that moment to a global population still quietly gasping in the wake of the war.
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