Contested Global Visions: One-World, Whole-Earth, and the Apollo Space

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Contested Global Visions: One-World, Whole-Earth, and the Apollo Space Photographs Author(s): Denis Cosgrove Source: Annals of the Association of American Geographers, Vol. 84, No. 2 (Jun., 1994), pp. 270- 294 Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. on behalf of the Association of American Geographers Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2563397 Accessed: 19-01-2016 20:35 UTC

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This content downloaded from 169.229.138.41 on Tue, 19 Jan 2016 20:35:55 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Contested Global Visions: One-World, Whole-Earth,and the Apollo Space Photographs

Denis Cosgrove

Department of Geography, Royal Holloway, Universityof London, Egham, Surrey

A t 05:33 EasternStandard Time on De- nocraticgoals and universalistrhetoric of Mod- cember 7, 1972, one of the three United ernism,the project's most enduring legacy is a States astronauts aboard the spaceship collection of images whose meanings are con- Apollo 17 on its coast towards the Moon shot tested in post-colonial and postmodernistdis- a sequence of eleven color photographs of courses. In order to analyze and contextualize Earth with a handheld Hasselblad camera. these Apollo images, I bring to bear the in- Twelve hours afterthe spacecraft'ssplashdown tertextualapproach developed in contempo- on ChristmasEve, the filmsequence was de- rarycultural analysis, here applied to the pri- veloped at the Manned Space Center in Hous- mary object of geographical representation: ton. Doug Ward, National Aeronautics and the surface of the Earth.The photographs are Space Administration's(NASA) Director of interpretedby referenceto various texts,some Public Affairs,examined the printedsequence with a view to issuing part of the mission's three-to four-thousandframe photographic record forthe waitingpress. One of the images- number AS1 7-148-22727 taken at some 21,750 nauticalmiles fromthe Earth(Figure 1)-caught his photojournalist'seye.1 It captured, center- frame and with perfectresolution, the fullter- racqueous disk withouta solar shadow or "ter- I2 minator." The whole Earth, geography's principal object of study, had been photo- graphed by a human eyewitness. My intentionhere is to examine that photographic image, 22727, together with an earlier and equally familiarApollo photograph of Earth rising over a lunar landscape, Earthrise(Fig- ure 2), with the intentionof placing them in the culturaland historicalcontext of Western global images and imaginings.I shall argue that representations of the globe and the whole Earth in the twentieth century have drawn upon and reconstituteda repertoireof sacred and secular, colonial and imperial meanings, and thatthese representationshave played an 1. The Whole Earth (NASA AS17-148- especially significantrole in the Figure self-repre- 22727). Apollo 17 photograph of Earthfrom space, sentation of the post-war United States and its December 1972. geo-cultural mission. While the Apollo lunar project signifiedthe achievement of the tech-

Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 84(2), 1994, pp. 270-294 ? Copyright1994 byAssociation of American Geographers Publishedby BlackwellPublishers, 238 MainStreet, Cambridge, MA 02142, and 108 CowleyRoad, Oxford, OX4 1JF,UK.

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Figure 2. Earthrise(NASA AS8-14-2383). Apollo 8 photograph of Earthtaken fromlunar orbit, December 1968.

writtenabout them, others referringless di- Seeing the Globe rectlyto imagined and actual views and representations of the globe but providingcontext Seeing the Earthwhole is criticalto the imagi- for Apollo readings. nativereception of the space images and to the The Apollo Earth photographs, though re- totalizing socio-environmental discourses of ceiving very limitedformal attention within ge- One-world and Whole-earth to which they ography,have been widely used as cover illus- have become so closely attached. To be sure, trationsfor texts and journals (for example, in images of the globe froma distance sufficient Geography,the journalof the Geographical As- forviewers to grasp itstotality long predate the sociation in Britain).They have been enor- Apollo photographs of the 1960s. Indeed, an mously significanthowever in altering the Apollonian perspective is implicitin Ptolemeic shape of the contemporarygeographical imagi- cartography's positioning of the observer at nation.This essay thus contributesto the grow- sufficientdistance to see the spherical Earth. ing interest in the histories of geographical The fifteenth-centuryrediscovery of this mode knowledge, in which geography as a formal of terrestrialmapping marks the beginningsof academic discipline is merely one element European Modernity.2An epigram celebrating (Driver1992; Livingstone1992). And by exam- Abraham Ortelius' Teatrum Orbis Terrarum iningterms that are so closely associated with (1570) portraysthe editorof the firstsystematic the Apollo images (One-world and Whole- world atlas as Apollo owing to his abilityimagi- earth), we provide perspective also on geog- nativelyto circle so high above the world that raphy's engagement in contemporary cultural the entire stage of human lifewas opened to debate. his, and the reader's, eye. Since the time of

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Ortelius and Mercator, atlases have conven- tionallyopened with a world map, in Renais- sance termsa speculum or mirrorfor the Euro- pean eye. And by linkingthe cartographicrepresentation of the Earth to its historyas re- counted in the Judeo-Christian tradition (Rabasa 1985), the firstmodern cartographers joined graphical syntheses of European global knowledge in the firstcentury of the European imperium with a universalizingChristian cos- mology and planetary geo-strategic discourses-all of which prefiguresthe production and earlyreception of the Apollo space images (Jacob 1992). Of course, the use of the sphere as an imperial emblem predates the Renaissance. From the period of Constantine (A.D. 324-337), the sphere is interwoven into the discourses of Christendom and Empire.A favored medieval representationdepicts Christholding or standing on the tripartiteterrarum orbis. The geo- metricalperfection of the sphere renders it a suitable symbol of divinity,and Christianneo- platonistsoften exploited the microcosm-mac- rocosm implicationsof the congruent shapes Figure 3. Pietro Longhi's The Geography Lesson. of the human eye and the terrestrialglobe, FondazioneQuerini Stampalia, Venice. especially as represented by Ptolemy (Cos- grove 1993). It is a short step thence to seeing as the foundation of knowledge and power, and to the gaze-distanced, objective, and penetrating-as symbolicallymastering, mascu- tween imaginings and Modernity. In 1665 line, and modern.3 The habits of simultane- members of the newly-foundedRoyal Society ously gazing upon the world and masteringit in London heard a paper entitled "Monsieur are increasingly synonymous in the lavishly Auzout's Speculations of the Changes, Likely decorated globes, atlases and world maps that to be Discovered in the Earthand the Moon, were designed to satisfythe visual lusts of Ba- by Their Respective Inhabitants,"that drew on roque princes. A case in point is Vincenzo the findings of the new physics to describe Coronelli's design of celestial and terrestrial how our planet mightlook to an extraterrestrial globes for Louis XIV at Marly. In addition to (Philosophical Transactions1665). Two centu- being the largestever produced, his globes are ries later,at the moment of Europe's finaldrive inscribedwith the patternof the heavens at the for terrestrialhegemony, Philip Gilbert Hamil- moment of the Sun King's nativityand with ton imaginedthe ArchangelRaphael's perspec- decorative legends on the terrestrialsphere tive of Earthas he flew towards the terrestrial that narratethe radiantspread of his faithand paradise bearing God's message to Adam. power across the globe. By the eighteenthcen- Hamilton's description prefiguresphotograph tury,the intellectualmastery of globes, their 22727 with uncanny accuracy: celestial pattern,and their evermore detailed It would firstbecome visibleas a mere pointof terrestrialoutline of continentsand seas was an light,then as a remoteplanet appears to us; after accomplishment expected of the educated thatit would shine and dazzle us; thenwe should European bourgeoisie, male and female alike beginto see itsgeography as we do thatof the (Figure 3). moon; at lastwhen we came withinthree terres- trialdiameters, or about twentythousand miles Imaginativewriters were equally fascinated [almostexactly the distanceof 22727],we should by the view of the whole Earth from space. distinguishwhite icy poles, the vast blue oceans, Two examples sufficeto illustratethis link be- the continentsas largeislands glistening like gold

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in the sunshine,and the brightsilver wandering fieldsof clouds.(quoted in Newhall1969:12)

2 * ja 0 ,, In Hamilton's time, photography as a new g A~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~...... mode of representationwas being pressed into the service of cartography.Aerial photographs taken from balloons and kites offered a new mode of representationby the early twentieth century.In the same years, polar expeditions were completing the European project of global exploration and mapping begun a half- millenniumearlier (Fogg 1990; Katz and Kirby g / I'd, j~~~~/\ 1991). Accurate cartographicrepresentation of the vast polar regions was not to be achieved, however, by Earth-bound observers. It was powered flightand airplane cameras duringthe inter-waryears that first provided cartographers with accurate data on Antarctica. Al- though reiteratingthe power of seeing, aerial photographs did not offera global view; rather they reinforcedthe particularizingqualities of the conventional topographic map. Only the highest flyingballoons in the 1930s achieved sufficientaltitude to convey even an impression of the Earth'scurvature. The photographic image of the whole Earththus awaited space rocketryin the period followingWorld War II. From the earliest American experiments with captured German V2 rockets, cameras attached to these new sources of power offered Figure4. Jacopode Barbari'sApollo and Diana.Ve- netianearly sixteenth-century engraving showing the an ever-wider perspective on the Earth'ssur- Greek God Apollo standingabove the terrestrial face. The culturalrelations between photogra- globewhich turns along the zodiacal band below his phy,cartography, and air power in the twenti- feet. Courtesy of The BritishLibrary. eth centuryare central thereforeto an under- standingof the Apollo images and the interpre- tative ambiguities that have attended them. I shall returnto these issues followinga resume of the production and content of the Apollo was short-lived.Apollo 17 was the last in a space images. series of American-manned flights to the Moon. Indeed the two expeditions planned to follow it had already been cancelled before its The Apollo Program and Earth launch. The entire period of the Apollo space program thus spanned littlemore than a dec- Photography ade from its inception in 1961. Apollo 8, the firstto escape Earth orbit and encircle the The Apollo space programwas aptlynamed. Moon, returned during Christmas 1968 with Greek Apollo combined the strength and Earthrise. With it came the earliest eyewitness beauty of male youth with the severe purityof pictures taken from sufficient distance to cap- reason. As a sun god he circled the Earth,his ture the whole terracqueous globe, albeit as a dispassionate vision encompassing the pathetic partialand shadowed disk suspended over the doings of mortals(Figure 4). On the shoulders lunar landscape (Figure 2). Earthrisewas the of similarlyyouthful male heroes, NASA's Sat- subject of immediate commentaryand specu- urn rockets carried the imaginativevision of a lation about a reformedview of the world. But modern superpower beyond the confines of soon afterthe objective of a lunar landingwas Earth.The program'sappeal, while spectacular, achieved in 1969, public interestand official

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support forthe Apollo programwaned rapidly. NASA officialsdebated the use of satellitesin Since 1972, NASA has confined astronautical photographing Earth resources (Com pton activities to Earth orbit. Two photographs, 1989; Mack 1990; Wilhelms 1993), Earthob- Earthriseand 22727, define thereforea histori- servation was of relativelyminor significance cal moment in which the curtain opened on throughout.During preparationsfor the Apollo the theater of the world and the human eye 8 launch, however, NASA focused consider- pretended to Apollo's heritage. able attention on photographic plans. These Oddly enough, the only major American plans competed for the astronauts' time and newspaper to carry 22727 was The Chicago attentionwith a wide range of other demands. Tribunein its edition of Sunday, December 24, The mission's aim-to establish possible lunar 1972, while the National Geographic magazine landingsites-required high-resolutionphotog- failed to reproduce the image in its lavishly raphyand, because selection depended in part illustrated1973 summaryof "mankind's great- on the astronauts'judgments of site quality,us- est adventure" (Grosvenor 1973). Under the age of a handheld camera in addition to auto- headline "One Last View of Earth",the Tribune matic work (NASA 077-66 1968). noted prescientlythat not only was this "the Apollo 8 carried two 70mm and nine 16mm first time the full Earth has been photo- magazines forHasselblad handheld cameras to graphed," but that it might also be the last. be used for lunar,Saturn IVB rocket, and Earth What neitherjournalists nor other commenta- photography (NASA 070-36 1968; also NASA tors anticipated, however, was the enormous MSC-NA-69 1969:13-1,4). Calculations of shut- popularity of this image. As an icon of the ter speed (1/250 seconds), exposure, scene Earth,22727 would largelyreplace the cartog- geometryand albedo effects,and filmsensitiv- rapher's globe with its delineation of lands and itywere determined by the exigencies of the seas on a graticule of latitude and longitude. lunar surface rather than Earth photography The fact that both Earthriseand 22727 are in (NASA MSC-PA-R-69-1 1969:4-3). The Final the public domain4 accounts, in part,for their Photographic and TV Operations Plan for ubiquitous reproduction as advertising and Apollo 8 ranked photographic objectives un- publicitycopy. But that does not tell us why der two categories: Category A listed "Opera- these images have become such powerfuland tion Objectives" that were largelyconcerned ambiguous icons, their meaning apparently with the lunar surface and the performanceof malleable enough for deployment in behalf of the Saturnrocket. The thirteenCategory B ob- diverse and often opposing ideological posi- jectives were headed by "long distance Earth tions. More than any other images, Earthrise stillphotography," including weather and ter- and Photo 22727 now serve as visual signifiers rainanalysis with global coverage, horizon and forthe terms Whole-earthand One-world, es- highatmosphere studies, and "Earthterminator pecially in American culture.5 Yet when we studies." Near the bottom of the list,item B12 reflect on the status that these two photo- allocated just 60 of the 335 available framesto graphs have achieved over the past twenty "Crew observations," that is, still-camerapho- years, the lack of criticalattention accorded to tography in order "to provide documentary them is remarkable.6Writings about them have evidence of visually observed phenomena, paid littleattention to their pictorialform and features to be selected by the crew" (NASA content; they have assumed instead that the 077-66 1968). In later missions, these photo- picturesare so familiarthat they do not require graphs would be referredto as "targetsof op- reproduction.Nor have criticsreflected on the portunity."Ironically, if Earth photography was historicaland geographical contexts in which almost an afterthoughtin mission planning, it these images were initiallyproduced, later re- was these low-prioritytargets of opportunity produced, and eventuallytextualized. that would yield some of the most enduring The justificationsfor the Apollo program images of the entireApollo program. were primarilyscientific and technical. The programwas seen as offeringopportunities for scientificand engineeringstudies of spacecraft Earthrise performance,human responses, astronomical phenomena and, above all, the lunar surface Apollo 8 produced the photograph of a par- itself(Roland 1985; Rudney 1970). Although tiallyshadowed Earthrising over the lunarsur-

This content downloaded from 169.229.138.41 on Tue, 19 Jan 2016 20:35:55 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Contested Global Visions 275 face (Figure 2). The shot was a sensation, de- the words of BuckminsterFuller, the Earthap- spite the fact that full-Earthimages from me- pears to float in "x-trillionsof time years of chanical cameras predated the Apollo 8 mis- nothingness (whose incredible depths appear sion by two years. In 1966 Lunar Orbiter I, an to us as pure no-light,a quality of blackness unmanned lunar vehicle, sent back a full-Earth never before experienced)" (Fuller 1969:37). photograph that had been processed in space By no stretchof the imaginationcould we call and electronically recomposed back on the Earthrisea cartographic image; it is however ground; and in July1967 a color photograph intensely geographical, drawing on powerful of the full earthly disk was received from a conventions of cosmographic and choro- United States Navy Dodge satellite.These im- graphic representation in the Western geo- ages were not widely publicized, however, be- graphical imagination (Cosgrove 1984) and cause theirquality was poor. Earthrisewas, by opening it to the range of interpretationsdis- contrast,witnessed by a mass television audi- cussed below. ence prior to the publication of this stunning still-color photograph. Given the appeal of Earthrise,the formalaspects of its composition 22727 are worthyof more detailed examination. The stillphotograph (AS8-14-2383) is tripar- Despite the sensation which attended publi- tite in composition. A section of the lunar sur- cation of Earthrise,NASA's photographic plans face "grounds" the image; it is light grey in for Apollo 17 assigned no greater priorityto color, dusty in texture,and the outlines of cra- Earthphotography than for Apollo 8 or any of tersare visiblefrom color contrast.This portion the interveningmanned space shots. In Sep- of the photograph occupies some 25 percent tember 1972, three months before the launch of the frameand contains an uninterruptedho- of Apollo 17, NASA received a review of crew- rizon line sloping gentlyfrom left to right.The operated photographyduring the Apollo pro- rest of the image consists of the deep black of gram (NASA TN D-6972 1972). The extremely unexposed filmenshrouding the semicircle of detailed plans forphotographic procedures left Earthslightly right of center. The Earthis com- littleroom for initiativeon the part of the as- posed of swirls of white against a blue back- tronauts. Among the major constraintswere: ground in the color printor black in the mono- exposure times in the absence of light-diffusing chrome. Patches of brown at the lower edge, atmosphere; insufficienttime to determineop- where the clear definitionof the upper arc timal settingsand vantage points; and weight gives way to the haze of the terminatorline, limitson the number and varietyof lenses and are scarcely traceable on the monochrome. film.While other constraintssuch as spacecraft They can, with close attention,be recognized roll,sight-lines, angles and elevation of targets, on the color printas the western edge of the and planetaryand terminatorrise and set times Africancontinent. The sloping horizon and po- could be met by pre-computingand pre-flight sitionof the Earthgive the picturea directional simulation,photography's relativelylow prior- sense, while the orientationof the planet on itygenerally meant thatthe opportunitiesfor a an east-west axis, the swirlingpattern of cloud, comprehensive and high-qualityphotographic and the shading of the land mass into darkness record were consistentlysub-optimal through- all suggest its revolution. out the program. The most strikingaspect of the photograph Given these constraints and the loss of a is its inversion of an intenselyfamiliar repre- number of frames on the Apollo 17 mission sentational theme: a nocturnal landscape illu- owing to the failureof the film-forwardingmo- minated by a half-moon. But here the "land- tor on the Hasselblad, it is remarkable that scape" element is the inorganic moon while 22727 is as fine an image as it is unique. The color is reserved to the cool oceanic and at- mission's plan called for photographic se- mospheric earth. A secondary challenge to fa- quences of lunarearthshine photographs to be miliarassumptions is the lack of any other illu- taken during the trans-lunarcoast (TLC), but mination-the nightsky is bereftof stars.Com- other shots were "targetsof opportunity."The bined with the deathly lunar surface the pho- sequence of eleven Earth photographs tograph suggests the complete isolation of (22725-22735), taken aftera shot of the falling terrestriallife in a black, sepulchral universe. In away of the finalstage of the Saturn V rocket,

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fAol 17 hicteuneso SJ FigueFigue5.Cnatpin 5 Cotactprit o po gr ig272.Suc:N. JS..c N ,

varied in qualitybecause of problems of expo- Summit in 1992 (Figure 6). All of this suggests sure and framing(Figure 5). The Preliminary that the formal qualities of the image out- Science Report followingthe mission paid little weighed its cartographiccontent. To be sure, attentionto these Earthphotographs. It repro- examination of the image's composition and duced Photo 22727 accompanied by a bland content suggests a density and an aesthetic caption: "For the firsttime on an Apollo mis- harmonythat are remarkable in a photograph sion, the Antarcticicecap was visible during taken almost at whim. Undoubtedly these ar- the Apollo 17 TLC. This fulldisk view encom- tisticqualities have played a significant,if little passes much of the South AtlanticOcean, vir- noted, role in the photograph's dissemination tuallyall the Indian Ocean, Antarctica,Africa, a and reception. part of Asia, and, on the horizon, Indonesia 22727 locates a perfectlycircular Earth image and the western edge of Australia"(NASA SP- withina square frame.When the terrestrialdisk 330 1973:4-9). is centered by minor cropping of the original The popular response was, by contrast, shot, the image attains the mandala form of rathermore enthusiastic.Indeed the very ubiq- circle and square whose completeness and uityof 22727, endlessly reproduced on post- geometrical unityare familiarfrom the cross- cards, lapel buttons, flags, calendars, political cultural historyof cosmic images and which manifestos, commercial advertisements, and Carl Jung(1959) regarded as a key archetype. tee-shirts(Gaarb 1985), serves to deflect close This may account, in part,for the quasi-mantric scrutinyof the image's content. In some cases statusof the image among Whole-earthenthu- its reproducers have unconsciously and unob- siasts. As in Earthrise,the surroundingspace is servedly reversed the image as, for example, a deep black void. The floatingEarth seems to when BBC TV News used 22727 as the logo merge into nothingness,an impression that is for their week-long coverage of the Rio Earth conveyed by the faintedging haziness of its

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: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~it *' i

Figure7. Analysisof geometryof 22727 showing the patternof square,circles, arcs and triangle.

Figure 6. AttractiveDetached Residence. Poster published by Friendsof the Earth,London. Courtesy Horn of Africa and Arabian desert peninsula of Friendsof the Earth. are clearly etched. Patches of white clouds wreathe the rest of the Earth, save for the dense mass of the Antarcticcontinent whose outline is readilyapparent. Since the photograph orients the globe ac- outline,that is produced by the globe's encir- cording to the cardinal points, the warm cling belt of atmosphere, and thatis delineated browns of the cloud-free Sahara at the top most clearly against the land mass at the top (north) are perfectly balanced by the cold left.Within the circular frame are secondary white of the icy Antarcticmass on the lower and more complex geometricalshapes: a major (southern) edge. A broadly circular area of triangleof land, a series of arcs dividingthe disk ocean defined by the coast of Mozambique, into bands, and a number of minorcircles giv- the island of Madagascar and the northern ing weight to the lower part (Figure 7). These edge of the densest cloud mass, provides a downward curving arcs together with the central focus to the design. Given the time of atmospheric haze, the cloud forms, and the year, close to the winter solstice, and the tra- colors produce a wateryimage of almost tearful jectory of the spaceship, the east-west diame- intensity. ter of the global disk lies almost exactly along The dominant colors are blue, white, and the Tropic of Capricorn, while the equatorial brown. The brown and blue are easily recog- line is identifiableby the broken cloud cover nizable to anyone familiarwith the conven- of the IntertropicalConvergence Zone. The tional world map as the land masses of Africa largestvisible oceanic area lies east of Africain and the Arabian Peninsula and the South At- the western part of the Indian Ocean whose lanticand Indian Oceans, respectively.The de- high productivityrenders it intenselyblue on a sertand savannah regions of Africaand Arabia, photographic plate. Any monotony of marine Earth's largest cloud-free region, occupy the tones is relieved, however, by the patternof frame.The Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea cut clouds in the southernoceans: a series of swirl- a deep gash into the patch of ocher so thatthe ing sickle shapes formed by depressions pass-

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ing fromwest to east and givingthe impression clothe itselfanew in the naturalhues of water, of rotationaldynamism. This impression is fur- earth, and the softestveils of atmosphere. ther emphasized-and the picture rendered three-dimensional-by the equatorial arc of broken clouds. Thus, when these composi- Modernist Global Images and tional elements are taken as a whole, photograph 22727 is readilycorrelated with modern Visions cartographicrepresentations of the world. At the upper edge of the photograph, the While the formal qualities of Earthriseand eastern part of the Mediterranean Sea is just 22727 and the narrow context of their origin discernible.To Western eyes thisis the "oldest" in the Apollo space programserved to increase part of the world, cartographic center of the cultural significance of the photographic Ptolemy's ecumene. Or, as an American com- images, these factorsfall short of a fullaccount. mentatorspeaking about an earlierspace pho- Criticalinterpretation requires us to delve fur- tograph put it,"much of our commonly taught therby examiningthe broader aspects of Mod- historycenters around that littlesea, a mere ern culture in which the images were ad- patch in the hemisphere, which once seemed dressed. In this section, I returnto twentieth- to its inhabitantsthe whole world" (quoted in century interrelationsbetween photography, Nicks 1970:3). At the base of 22727, mean- the aerial vision, global representations,and while, is Antarctica,the "youngest" part of the geopolitics as they played themselves out known world, "globalised" under the Treatyof within Modernist discourse, especially in the 1959. Between lies Africa. Although now United States. This approach more directlyad- widely regarded as the birthplaceof mankind, dresses the culturalassumptions that engaged Africahas been seen as the "dark" continent interpretationsof the Apollo Earthimages, both in conventional Western imaginationand it has initiallyand in the ensuing quarter century. been consistently diminished in Eurocentric I have already noted photography's role in cartographic practice (Rabasa 1985:14, foot- completing the planetarycartographic project note 6; Driver 1992). 22727, by contrast,gives entrained during the European Renaissance. Africaan unaccustomed centralityin the rep- The influence of photography in structuring resentation of the world. Indeed the South the Western geographical imaginationis only dominates the image to the exclusion of now beginningto receive the criticalattention Europe, the Americas, and Australasia. it deserves. Photography'sclose relationswith For Western observers, the image 22727 landscape painting in the era of the diorama challenges received notions of continental and the American conquest of the West have scale by exaggeratingprecisely those regions- been noted often enough (Galassi 1981; Africa,the southern oceans, Antarctica-that, Daniels 1993), but photography played an throughthe cartographer'schoice of map pro- equally significantrole in imperialist repre- jections, normally appear so small on world sentations of the culturalOther withinthe late maps, and so correspondinglyinsignificant in nineteenth-centurydiscourses of European sci- Western geographical consciousness. Above ences such as anthropology and geography all, the picturelacks both the coordinatingsys- (Harraway1991; Ryan1994). That same period tem of the graticule and text. In the firstin- also marksthe originof photography'spower- stance, the graticule has been so taken for fulclaim to mimetictruth, a claim only success- granted in cartographic representation since fullychallenged during the past two decades the Renaissance that we registeronly sublimi- (Bolton 1989; Shapiro 1988). Bureaucraticand nallyits organizing lattice.In the second, plac- judicial acceptance of photography as docu- ing names on the world map has been such an mentaryand legal evidence in the 1890s fos- importantcartographic expression of European tered the assumption that the camera cannot knowledge-power that their absence from lie (Tagg 1988). The photograph implied a hu- 22727 constitutes a radical challenge to the man eye behind the camera and thus a "wit- Modern geographical imagination. Freed of ness" whose image testifiedto the veracityof graticule, names, and human boundaries, the recorded event. The significance of the 22727 represents an earth liberated from cul- eyewitness in establishingthe truthof images turalconstrictions and apparentlyat libertyto resurfacedin the historyof space photography

This content downloaded from 169.229.138.41 on Tue, 19 Jan 2016 20:35:55 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Contested Global Visions 279 as well: John Glenn's 1962 pictures of Earth, pian perspective was privileged, however. shot with a 35mm camera, had much greater Only a "few"-Charles Lindberg in the United public impact than the hundreds of terrestrial States, Balbo in Italy-were mythologized as images taken by automatic cameras and sen- modern Apollos, youthfulgods whose mis- sors-and the same applies to the Whole-earth sions took them above and beyond the mun- images discussed here, also predated by auto- dane lifeof earthbound mortalsand gave them maticallygenerated photographs.7 The claim a uniquely modern vision. The romance and that Earthriseand 22727 offeredthe firstpic- power attached to the aerial view at this time tures of the Earth "as it really is" depended are menacinglyapparent in the opening scenes upon this armature of assumptions that de- of Leni Riefenstahl'sNazi propaganda movie, fended the objectivityof the photographic im- Triumphof the Will,in which an airborne cam- age. era follows the Fuhrer's plane through the clouds, providing our's and Hitler's mastering gaze with quasi-cartographic glimpses of the The Airman's Vision German landscape below. The romanticassociation of (generallymale) However, the Apollo images emerge froma youth, power, and will with the Apollonian historythat is much more specific than that of perspective offeredby air flightallowed foran photographyin general. This historydeals with heroic constructionthat attributedthe airman the intimaterelations between the camera and with distinctivelyModern qualities of scientific aerial flightand withthe statusattributed to the objectivity, technical mastery, global vision eyewitness behind the aerial camera, the air- and, ultimately,mission. The last of these terms man himself,that developed duringthe course has been closely associated, of course, with of the twentieth century. The revolutionary the interlockingdiscourses of religiousconver- perspective affordedby the aerial view of the sion and militaryrule that have long structured Earth encouraged balloon photography from the imperial imaginationin the West.8 These the earliest days of the new medium and that attributeswere furtherreinforced by the aerial view also appealed to the Modernist imagina- engagements of World War II (Gruffudd1991) tion in the interwaryears. This appeal was es- and later informed the selection and public pecially strong in those nations-Italy, Ger- personae of American astronauts throughout many,and the United States-that most enthu- the space race in the 1960s. As Michael Smith siasticallyadopted Modernism's futuristicaes- (1983) has pointed out, the alliance of technol- thetic.The ItalianFuturist painter Marinetti,for ogy and gender loomed prominentlyin the example, proclaimed the aerial view as the ar- representationof earlyAmerican astronauts(all tisticperspective of the future;and in 1928, the of them test pilots) as "helmsmen." Time por- National Geographic published a series of arti- trayedJohn Glenn as "a latterday Apollo" and cles on geography fromthe air. These articles Alan Shepard as the new Lindberg; and the celebrated, among other things,the achieve- ubiquitous use of "mission" resonates through ment of the "ItalianArgonauts," the long-dis- the entire Apollo program. tance pilots organized by the Fascist air ace, geopolitical strategist,and later governor of It- aly's Libyan empire, Italo Balbo (Dreikhausen Global Airlines 1985; Segre 1987; Atkinson 1993). The airbornecamera simultaneouslyrealized Rapid development of commercial jet air- geography's mission-to provide accurate de- planes and the fallingreal cost of air travel in scriptionof the entireglobal surface-as it bore the post-war years enabled growing numbers witness to a new perspective on that surface: of Americans and Europeans to experience the "the airman'svision" which served as the foun- aerial perspective. By the late 1950s, the DC8 dation of twentieth-century geopolitical and Boeing 707 were bringinglong-distance thoughtthat would, in turn,influence some of flightwithin the range of business and recrea- the earliestcommentaries on the Apollo pho- tional travelers in the rich countries of the tographs."The airplane,"in Antoine de St. Exu- world. By the early 1970s, wide-bodied pery'swords, "has unveiled forus the trueface "jumbo" jets, the Boeing 747 for example, fur- of the earth" (Bunkse 1990). The pilot's Olym- ther reduced the cost of air travel; and, flying

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at altitudesup to 45,000 feet,they offeredex- New Yorkersas was the Daily Planetto readers tended views of the Earth'ssurface to ordinary of Marvel Comics' Superman. In the same dec- familiesin the West. The Olympian perspective ade, the American Bible Society and the Chris- on the Earthwhich just thirtyyears earlierhad tian Science PublishingHouse in Boston, both been the privilegeof a small number of cultural dedicated to world-wide evangelism, commis- heroes was now becoming commonplace. Al- sioned large globes (50 inches and 30 feet re- though the slow-moving panorama visible spectively)to signifythe geographical scope of fromthe window of a jet is not recognizable their "mission." The links between the globe cartographically unless we are already ac- and Modernism in the 1930s were strength- quainted with a regional map of the area, air ened also by usage of the globe as a logo by travel has familiarizednonetheless large num- Hollywood movie studios, while the identifica- bers withthe synoptic,high-altitude gaze over tion of the globe with Modernist culture re- the Earthand enabled many others to share ceived its ultimate imprimaturwith the con- vicariouslythe astronaut's perspective on our structionof a hollow globe, 13.5 feet in diame- planet. Buteven these experiences did not fully ter, for the Museum of Modern Art in New prepare people for the global views provided York which the public was invitedto enter to by Earthriseand 22727. view the world froma centralstage (Fisherand Whatever the role of the post-war airline Muller 1944). The post-war period continued corporations in elevating the image of the the theme: the central structureof the New globe to a more centralplace in American cul- York World's Fair in 1964/65, the vast turalconsciousness, America's fascinationwith Unisphere, consisted of an open global frame the globe as a symbol of modernitywas al- formed by the graticuleto which reliefmaps of ready apparent in the period between the the continents were attached, while Disney- World Wars. EarlierI referredto the long his- world's 17-story silver geosphere, "Spaceship tory of using globes as an emblem of empire. Earth,"traced the historyof communications. The vast globes constructed in the late nine- Internationalairlines in the post-war years teenth century consciously signifiedthe uni- were likewise captivated by globes and world versalist claims of European imperialism, maps as visual descriptorsof theircommercial whether commercial, as in their emblematic activities.Not only did globes graphicallydem- usage in Universal Exhibitionsin the 1890s, or onstratethe scope of theirroute systems,they spiritual,as in theirpopularity among Christian conveyed also a sense of scale and impor- missionary societies.9 Similarly,the use of tance, regardless of the density of the route globes on colonial postage stamps signifieda network. Thus the globe, together with the world unifiedby postal and telegraphcommu- national flag, became a favored logo for air- nications. And technical advances early in this lines. Duringthe 1 940s and 1 950s, the firsttruly century-advances that permittedaccurate in- internationalairlines, predominantly American, scriptionof the entire patternof land and sea erected giganticglobes as decorative and dec- areas on the globe's surface-furtherenhanced larative statements at their head offices. Pan the globe's appeal as an icon of progress for American for example, commissioned a globe institutionsand corporations,sacred or secular, 10 feet in diameter and 1:4 millionin scale for that claimed worldwide links. its Miami office.In the late 1950s, TransWorld The media, communications, and transpor- Airways(TWA) established an "air-world"edu- tationwere obviously attractedto the emblem- cation department with the declared aim of atic significanceof the globe. Newspapers, es- increasing passenger trafficby removing the pecially in North America, used the words fear of flying and making Americans air- "dworld"and "globe" in their titles and con- minded. Addressing the first International structed globes in or on their buildings (Do- Globe Conference in Vienna in 1962, Trans mosh 1989). In the 1930s, a revolving alumi- World's chiefofficer, Paul L. Dengler,described num globe, measuring12 feet in diameter and one of itsprograms which carriedselected uni- weighing2 tons (at a scale of 1:3,480,000), was versityeducation majors to Europe on a "flying mounted on the top of the New York News' seminar."Lectures were delivered in frontof a building. It became one of the landmarks of large globe illuminatedfrom within and carry- New York's Modernist skyline, as familiarto ing the lettersTWA. The seminar'stheme, "air-

This content downloaded from 169.229.138.41 on Tue, 19 Jan 2016 20:35:55 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Contested Global Visions 281 mindedness," invoked a vision of global citi- cism and unitingthe diverse peoples of the zenship thatwould overcome American isola- world into one nation (e pluribus unum). tionism and provincialismand induce under- "The idea of one world," wrote Freidrich standing of "the consequences of the daily Tenbruch in tracing the emergence of "one shrinkingprocess of time and space on our worldism" as a totalizing discourse informing globe." "Of course," continued Dengler, "you America's post-war sense of mission, "could should remain good patriotsof your own na- only springfrom the ground of Christendom" tion . .. but at the same time you must tryto (Tenbruch 1990:198). Given that versions of think globally . . . Let yourselfbe convinced Islam also have universalistproselytizing aspi- that we are, all of us, in the same boat, for rations (as does Marxism), Tenbruch's claim better or worse, whether you like it or not" may perhaps more accurately be made for (Dengler 1962:94). Judeo-Christianmonotheism ratherthan Chris- Dengler's emphasis on the threat of the A- tendom alone. The United States, nonetheless, bomb and total war as the compelling reasons has been the heir to a universalizingculture forTWA's initiativeimparted a significancewell that is embodied in the Enlightenmentprinci- beyond commercial promotion; and his termi- ples of its constitutionalphilosophy. Appropri- nology anticipated language and terms that ately therefore,the globe has served as the would be used later in connection with the graphic motiffor American empire, and it has Apollo photographs: "our globe, formerlythe been deployed not only by American corpo- image of a mysticismand unknown remote- rations and missionary groups, but also by ness, shrinksbefore our eyes to a tinyapple" American-sponsored international agencies (Dengler 1962:95). like the United Nations. But in one key respect, this totalizing iconography was different.The globe was newly-and subtly-interpretedas a Textualizing Apollo's sign of spatial and social incorporationrather than of direct imperialdomination. Whole-EarthImages The Apollo space program was inextricably linked to this American sense of planetaryim- The post-war years witnessed both the dis- perial mission (McDougall 1985; Logsdon membermentof the European empires and the 1970). LyndonJohnson, speaking in the debate fullpanoply of America's global power. Replac- which led to NASA's establishment in 1958, ing European dominion while retaining so proclaimed: "The Roman Empirecontrolled the many of the old continent'ssacred and secular world because it could build roads .. . the Brit- culturalassumptions, the United States inher- ish Empirewas dominant because it had ships. ited the European mission civilatrice.A combi- In the air age we were powerful because we nation of commercial acumen and a universal- had airplanes. Now the Communists have es- ist vision projected the American way as the tablished a foothold in outer space." While model of enlightened civic virtueto which all competition with the Soviet Union certainly the world's peoples should naturallyaspire. resonated in John F. Kennedy's May 1961 ad- America's own constitutionalprinciples and its dress to Congress committingthe nation "to deep ideological opposition to the one remain- achieving the goal, before this decade is out, ing territorialempire, the USSR, denied the of landing a man on the moon and returning United States traditional forms of imperial him safelyto the earth,"the dominant rhetoric dominationin territorialacquisition. The Ameri- of Apollo spoke of an incorporativevision of can empire required a new structureand a global human mission ratherthan of dominion new language of imperium(McDougall 1985). or territorialcontrol; and as such, that rhetoric The structurewas economic, based on Amer- was unremarkablyconsonant with much of ica's total domination of immediate post-war post-war American foreignpolicy. Imperialex- industrialproduction and internationaltrade; pansion, henceforth, was to be directed the language was triumphal,and predicated on peacefully beyond the Earthfor the benefitof American democracy as a universalistmodel "all mankind" ratherthan into the territoriesof that,in the eyes of many in the establishment, other human cultures. had proven its moral virtue by defeating fas- Apollo 8 was launched on December 21,

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1968, and returnedto Earthon December 27. Its spectacular success in escaping Earthorbit, Peace in the Universe, Good Will Toward Men' coasting to the Moon, orbitingit and returning to a safe splashdown gained added impact from the fact that the journey spanned the Christmas holiday. Not only did this timing maximize a global television audience made possible by recently established satellitelinks, but it also ensured the harnessing of the various associations of Christmas,both sacred and secular, with the mission's representation.10A new star was in the heavens, with a message of peace and goodwill to all mankind. The news media capitalized on these poetic oppor- tunitiesto align traditionalChristian universal- ism to the American vision of global harmony already articulatedby Dengler, among others. As NASA's news clippings file reveals, Ameri- can newspapers exploited the sacred meanings of Christmasas a time of rebirth,harmony and peace in stressingthe venture's pan-human themes (Figure 8). While American patriotismwas evident in American news coverage, the patriotictheme was largelysubordinated to a humanistrhetoric Figure 8. Peace in the Universe. Cartoon by Pley- of peace and harmony,influenced perhaps by cher,Times-Picayune, New Orleans,December 24, the reports of heavy American casualties sus- 1968. Courtesyof Times-Picayune. tained in Vietnam. The three astronautsthemselves-Frank Borman, James Lovell, and Wil- liam Anders-reinforced the religioustheme by transmittingon Christmas morning an un- scheduled reading of the cosmogonic narrative get a conceptthat maybe this is reallyone world and whythe hell can't we learnto livetogether fromthe Book of Genesis, a selection that unlike decent people. (Borman, quoted in knowingly echoed Renaissance cosmogra- Newsweek,December 23, 1968) phers who related the cartographic image of the world to the Christiannarration of its crea- These responses to the Apollo 8 mission re- tion (Rabasa 1985:6). In his commentaries to focused the public mind, shifting its attention Mission Control during the ten lunar orbits, from the project's official objective (a Moon Lovell compared the Moon's dead surface,"es- landing) toward the astronauts' view of their "home planet." This was dramatically rein- sentially gray, with almost no color . . . much forced with publication of Earthrise two days like plaster of Paris or a grayishbeach sand," with the appearance of a livingEarth, visible as after splashdown. a brightsilver ball to television viewers and as a swirl of blues, browns, and whites to the astronauts:"a grand oasis in the big vastness of Riders on the Earth space." Frank Borman's response to this view of Earthriseonce again echoed, albeit with less The cultural reception of Earthrise owed grace, Seneca's words in Abraham Ortelius's much to certain texts written during and im- world atlas: "Is this that pinpoint which is di- mediately after the mission. These drew upon vided by sword and fire among so many na- and reinforced the interlocking discourses that tions? How ridiculous are the boundaries of I have outlined and that prepared the ground mortals."In Borman's rendering: for the ensuing reception of 22727. Perhaps the most significant of these texts was a short When you're finallyup at the moon looking back at earth,all those differencesand nationalistictraits essay written by the American poet Archibald are prettywell going to blend and you're going to MacLeish and published in The New York

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Times on ChristmasDay, December 25, 1968, event rapidlyturned the gaze away from the as the astronautscircled the Moon. Riders on objective of discovery and toward the meaning the Earthwas reproduced and quoted approv- of the terrestrialglobe. James Dickey's widely ingly in the American press in the days that quoted celebratoryverse, which firstappeared followed as well as in writingson space pho- in Life Magazine in early August, 1969, is tographyof Earthin many years to come. Ac- clearlyinfluenced by the Earthrisephotograph. companied by a color center-foldreproduction Dickey's verse makes the Earththe principal of Earthrise,it was quoted again in the May focus of attentionfor the lunarwalkers, and he 1969 National Geographic coverage of the binds their perspective with the traditional Apollo 8 mission (National Geographic 1969). gaze of landscape aesthetics by referencing MacLeish's essay opened with a summary one of the best-known landscape poems in the comment on the historyof Western cosmol- Englishlanguage: ogy: "Men's conception of themselves has al- ways depended on theirnotions of the earth." ... The Human Planet trembles in The displacement of humanityby Copernican itsblack and Newtonian science from the center of a Skywith what we do. I can see ithanging in the divinely-plannedcreation, he noted, has made god-gold only Brotherof yourface. We are thisWorld: we are us "helpless victims . . . of force" on a small, The onlymen. What hope is thereat home wet, spinning planet. In the few hours of In the azure of breath,or herewith the stone Apollo's lunar orbits, he claimed, the concep- Dead secret?My massiveclothes bubble around tion had altered irrevocablyonce again: me Cracklingwith static and Gray's For the firsttime in all of time men have seen the Elegyhelplessly coming earth:seen it not as continentsor oceans fromthe Frommy heart, and I say I thinksomething littledistance of a hundred miles or two or three, Fromhigh school I remembernow but seen itfrom the depths of space; seen itwhole Fadesthe glimmering landscape from the sight and and round and beautifuland small. (New York all the air Times, December 25, 1968) A solemnstillness holds. Earth glimmers And in itsair-color a solemnstillness holds Such an image of Earth,said MacLeish, would It.0 brother!Earth-faced god! Apollo! remake our image of humankind,now neither (Dickey1969) grand actors at the center of creation nor helpless victimsoff its margins,but in true propor- While Gray had gazed upon a moonlit tion with the planet: churchyardand contemplated human mortality To see the earth as it trulyis, small and blue and in the communityof an Englishvillage, Dickey's beautifulin thateternal silence in which itfloats, is astronautsraise theireyes towards a Moon-like to see ourselves as riders on the earth together, Earthfrom the cold lunar landscape and con- brothers on that brightloveliness in the eternal cold-brothers who know now thatthey are truly template brotherhood in a global village. From brothers.(New York Times December 25, 1968) their perspective, the appearance of divine Apollo attaches itselfto the Earthrather than to MacLeish's words dramatically underline themselves or to theirflimsy chariot. Modernist beliefs in the mimetictruth of pho- In his own celebration of the Moon landing, tography, the power of the synoptic gaze MacLeish followed a similar theme, inspired (which his language clearly regarded as gen- also by the image of Earthrise.Although awed dered male), and equally, one-worldism, that by the promethean achievement in touching is, the claims of American missionaryideology, the Moon, he turns immediatelyfrom its lifeof which this image stands as empirical proof. less surface to the risingEarth: As NASA's CurrentNews clippings file on the Apollo project ceaselessly reveals, the Ameri- can press reproduced MacLeish's final para- Over us, morebeautiful than the moon,a moon,a wonderto us, unattainable, graph with remarkable consistency, while its a longingpast the reachof longing, cadences echoed in the captions which a lightbeyond our light,our lives-perhaps henceforthtextualized Earthphotography from a meaningto us ... space. 0 a meaning! over us on these silentbeaches the bright Apollo 11's lunar landing in July1969 natu- earth, rally focused attention on the Moon rather presenceamong us than the Earth. However, the poetics of the (MacLeish1969)

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Spacewalkers it. It was a sense that resonated oddly with the contrapuntal response of proponents of pro- MacLeish's and Dickey's verse responds gressive one-worldism and Christianmission. imaginativelyto the photographic images re- These divergentways of interpretingthe im- turned from space in terms of Earth-bound, age of a floatingEarth at the turnof the 1 970s landscape conventions. The astronauts' com- capture at once the Modernist technological ments, however, put a differentgloss on these faiththat had launched the Apollo project ten images. Their words draw upon an alternative years earlierand the gnawing sense of mistrust and more intimatetradition of environmental in that faiththat was increasinglyapparent in relations between humanityand its terrestrial the closing years of the 1 960s. Spaceship Earth, home, which I here referto as Whole-earth for example, was a term originatedby another (Glacken 1967). In an interviewgiven soon af- arch-progressiveand Modernist thinker,Buck- ter the Apollo 8 mission, WilliamAnders, who minsterFuller. By entitlinghis late-1969 essay shot the Earthrisephotograph, described his "Verticalis to Live-Horizontal is to Die," Fuller experience at the time. The capsule was re- conveys the spiritof progress that he saw as turningfrom the lunar shadow afterthe first embodied in the space project. His conclusion, orbit of the Moon. The three astronautswere while acknowledging the limitationsimposed acutely conscious of being literallyon the dark by Earth's isolation in an organically dead side of the lunar landscape, beyond any pos- space, draws upon a series of engineering sible contact with Earth,utterly isolated in the metaphors to underwritea sense of techno- blackness of space: logical optimism: "our space-vehicle Earthand its life-energy-givingSun and tide-pumping The Earthlooked so tinyin the heavens thatthere were times duringthe Apollo 8 missionwhen I had Moon can provide ample sustenance and trouble findingit. Ifyou can imagine yourselfin a power for all humanity's needs" (Fuller darkened room with only one visible object, a 1969:88). But such optimism was increasingly small blue-green sphere about the size of a Christ- less secure. In the three years that had elapsed mas-tree ornament, then you can begin to grasp what the Earthlooks like from space. I thinkthat between the Moon landing and the final all of us subconsciously thinkthat the Earthis flat Apollo mission that produced 22727, the cul- or at least almost infinite.Let me assure you that, turalcurrency of the Modernist notion of pro- ratherthan a massive giant, it should be thought gress throughtechnology had been devalued, of as the fragile Christmas-treeball which we as indeed had faithin America's global mission. should handle withcare. (quoted in Nicks 1970:14) Once the objective of a Moon landing had Although Anders' words rework the sig- been achieved, public interestreturned rapidly nificance of the coincidence between Christ- to terrestrialmatters. As one recent writerob- mas and the timingof the flight,their meaning serves, the four years that separate Earthrise extends beyond reference to universal peace from 22727, 1968-1972, mark the era of the and human goodwill derived from its historic "prophets of doom," when a spate of gloomy religious associations to embrace the more futurologiesheralded the global environment secular, rooted, and domestic interpretationof movement (McCormick 1989). American popular culture (McGreevy 1990). Press commentaryon the finalApollo launch The Christmastree, of course, is more domes- consistentlyweighed the costs of the mission, tic than sacred, more evocative of images of as against its human benefits,and found them home and familythan of church and faith.The too high. Time captured the dramatic change ornament suggests a child's innocent excite- in mood. In 1968, Time's editors heralded the ment, while the concluding statement insists Apollo 8 crew as "men of the year" against a on fragilityand the possibilityof irreparable backdrop of the Earthrisephotograph and the damage by childish clumsiness. The metaphor simple caption "Dawn." The award was "not can, of course, have the opposite effectof that merely for the dazzling technology of their intended: it can trivialize Earth, making it a achievement, but for the larger view of our mere plaything.Whichever way we choose to planet and the fundamental unity of man" understand his metaphor, Anders invokes an (Time 1968). On the returnof Apollo 17, things association that is more local and homely and had changed. In December 1972, Time pub- less visual, a more tactile sense of feelingand lished a retrospectiveessay that regarded the holding the Earthrather than of simply seeing night launch as "a triumphof spectacle" or-

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chestrated by NASA to revive flaggingpublic Whitman,his vision of America was predicated interest.The result "may have been as much upon free space that granted "libertya farm- theatrical effect," the correspondent contin- yard wide" to a society characterized by the ued, "as spiritualexperience," a feature,paren- common decencies of good husbandry. thetically,that we often associate with post- MacLeish's best-known poem, America was modern culturalevents.11 The tone of the essay Promises (1939), employs a similarmeter and was reflectiveand its theme humility.It cau- conveys the same sense of mission that he tioned against claims of having conquered would use three decades laterin his Voyage to space and appealed instead for reshaping our the Moon: attitudestoward "the tired Earth." Although Apollo 17 returned with 22727, America was promises-to whom? that fact was inundated in a risingtide of self- Jeffersonknew: Declared it before God and before history: questioning, about limitsto growth and the Declares it stillin the rememberingtomb. population explosion, about global pollution The promises were Man's: the land was his- and poverty,about social injustice.A tired and Man endowed by his creator battered America had begun the last pull-out America is promises to of troops from Vietnam, and Time's essay ac- Take! curately reflected the prevailing media re- America is promises to sponse to the Apollo program and to the po- Us liticalpressures on NASA to bringthe project To take them to a premature end. 22727 and Earthrisethus Brutally With love but sit ambiguouslybetween two textualconstruc- Take them tions: the progressive One-worldism of late (MacLeish 1939) American Modernism and a Whole-earth environmentalism which, though historically The imperialist,masculine, and Christiandi- deep-rooted, is such a significantaspect of mensions of the American dream could hardly postmodern culture (Cosgrove 1990; have been more unambiguously expressed. Oelschlaeger 1991). Having argued stronglyagainst isolationismin While these two constructionsstand in op- the immediate pre-war years, MacLeish's Rid- position to one another, they emerge from a ers on the Earthoffers a powerfulrestatement common stock of cultural attitudes towards of his sense of global mission. Indeed, his 1968 America's geopolitical role. I have already theme was anticipatednot only in America was noted Archibald MacLeish's significantcontri- Promises but even more clearly in his 1942 bution to early interpretationsof the space essay The Image of Victory,published originally photographs. Closer scrutiny of his essay forAtlantic Monthly, and laterreproduced in a places it even more firmlywithin the Modern- symposium that year on political geography. ist geographical imagination.Among American This collection of papers on space and geopoli- intellectuals, MacLeish was an appropriate tics, which included contributionsfrom Isiah choice as a commentator on the Apollo Bowman, Halford Mackinder, EllsworthHunt- achievement. Born in 1892 and educated at ington, and GriffithTaylor, was intended to Yale and Harvard, he was a member of the challenge the influenceof German geopolitical white, Anglo-Saxon, protestant, male elite science in American thoughtas well as to steer whose domination of officialAmerican culture a course between American isolationismand went largelyunchallenged for the better part imperialism.As the editors put it: of thiscentury. A poet and playwrite,MacLeish was closely associated withthe Democratic es- we have seen the dangerous beginnings of an tablishment, serving briefly in Franklin D. American geopolitics, with blueprints for an American imperialismriding the waves of the fu- Roosevelt's administration and preceding ture. It favorsa disillusionedbalance-of-power so- Daniel Boorstin as Librarianof Congress. His lutionon the basis of regionalgroupings, in prepa- writingsconsistently celebrated a democratic rationof what the sponsors of such "realistic"plans and expansionist, but scarcely polyvocal, vi- consider inevitable:the ThirdWorld War. The editors and writersof this book . . that sion of . agree accep- American society, based upon the uni- tance of the ideology and creed of geopolitics versalist humanism of Tom Paine and the would be a dangerous step towards international Founding Fathers. A twentieth-centuryWalt Fascism. (Weigert and Stefansson 1944:x)

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MacLeish's contributionto this liberal goal tionism that MacLeish and his peers had establishes a direct link between the textualiz- sought to reject. Through television reports ing of Earthriseand the geopolitical discourses and pictures, many younger observers de- surroundingthe airman's view of the globe at tected a realityof violent oppression beneath mid-century.The Image of Victorycelebrates the universalistand humanist rhetoric of the the airman as the model for the progress of American imperium.For them, the airman's in- mankind, the man to whom the vision of the heritance was a B52 bomber wreaking indis- global futureis to be entrusted.Whoever wins criminatedestruction on the fields and forests the war, MacLeish claims,would win the future of Southeast Asia. For others, especially for of the world, "its geography, its actual shape women, MacLeish's images of "men" "taking" and meaning in mens' minds": America, and indeed the Earth, "brutally" meant just that-and in the most violent ways. Never in all theirhistory have men been able truly to conceive the world as one: a single sphere, a They responded to an alternative repre- globe havingthe qualities of a globe, a round earth sentation, less synoptic and distanced, articu- in which all the directions eventually meet, in lated in the astronauts'own sensibilities.Con- which there is no center because every point, or sider Michael Collins' very personal record of none, is center-an equal earth which all men oc- isolation as he circled the Moon's dark side, cupy as equals. The airman's earth, if free men make it, will be trulyround: a globe in practice, the single occupant of the Command Module not in theory.(MacLeish 1942:7) duringthe Apollo 11 landing: "I am alone now, trulyalone, and absolutely isolated from any For MacLeish therefore,and for many who known life . . . I am it. Ifa count were taken, thought like him, the Apollo project repre- the score would be three billion plus two on sented the crowningachievement of an Ameri- the other side of the Moon, and one plus God in can mission begun 1941, a mission which only knows what on thisside .. ." Then, as the would be realized not in flag-wavingnational- Earthrose over the lunar horizon: '[It seemed] ism but in mankind's universal destiny. The so small I could blot it out of the universe sim- ironythat the mission he celebrated was pow- ply by holding up my thumb . . . It suddenly ered by a "cold" war between two "regional struck me that that tiny pea, prettyand blue, groupings" seems to have been lost on was the earth . .. I didn't feel like a giant. I felt MacLeish. The photographs thatthe American very,very small (quoted in Ferris1984: 106). astronauts brought back to Earthseemed, for Collins' emphasis on feelingrather than see- him, dramatic confirmationof a universalist, ing, his recognition of limitsto the power in- implicitlyChristian vision. That they were un- herent in the gaze which the technological expected and unplanned, thatthey were taken miracle of his craftallowed him, his reflections by men who saw the Earthas it reallyis, that on humilityand the vulnerable fragilityof the they were eyewitnesses to global unityand the Earth,and his visions of intense localism, reso- new age that he had forecast in 1942, power- nated with the sensibilitiesof earthbound en- fullyconfirmed MacLeish's faith in America's vironmentalistssuch as Aldo Leopold, Fraser promises. His commentary on Earthrisethus Darling, and Rachel Carson (Worster 1988). drew upon and sought to confirmthis deeply Seen from 200,000 miles, Earth showed no embedded set of meanings. signs of brotherhood or common humanity, nor even human agency. Man seemed no more centralto existence than any other crea- One-World/Whole-Earth ture. In fact, what life there was seemed to inhere in the planet as a lifeworldrather than Archibald MacLeish was 76 when he wrote in some ordained hierarchyof creatures on its Riderson the Earth.Like BuckminsterFuller, he surface. represented a passing rather than a coming The astronauts'words articulatedthe sublim- generation.Others, many of whom had known ity of the Apollo photographs, their graphic only the post-war world of the Pax Americana, representationof the world as "a whole, ani- interpretedthe space images differently,read- mated and moved by inward forces" (Hum- ing them through an alternativeset of texts, boldt 1847:xviii),forces so balanced, intricate, even unconsciously projectingonto them fea- and powerful that in their presence the only tures of an American culturaltradition of isola- valid human responses were awe, wonder,

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and humility.Here the sense of sight is subor- three decades hence, in the 1970s, that atti- dinated to more visceral responses. Like the tude resurfacedas an alternativeprojection of imperialreading of the globe, this vitalistinter- American culture,to the Whole-earth. pretationof Earthhas a long and distinguished Since the middle years of the 1 970s, the de- historicalpedigree (Livingstone1992; Glacken mand for the Apollo photographs has been 1967), but for much of the twentiethcentury continuous and strong. In 1990 alone, 90 per- itlargely seems to have been suppressed in the cent of the photographic requests to the geographical imagination,defeated by the em- Johnson Space Center were for 22727 and piricistand technological imperativesof Mod- 1,280 copies were mailed (M. Gentry 1991, ernism (but see Matless 1992a; 1992b). In the personal communication). Its public use con- 1960s, however, certain scientific develop- tinues to reflect the two readings identified ments anticipated a vitalistrevival. The schol- here. The post-war sense of One-world as arly acceptance of plate tectonics and of his- America's salvational mission, though more toricalvariation in global magnetic polaritysig- difficultto sustain in an era of American eco- nalled new scientificperspectives on the Earth. nomic decline, the passing of the bipolar These would gain enormous stimuluswith the conflictthat provided the ideological founda- publicationof James Lovelock's Gaia hypothe- tion for that mission, and some two decades sis in the 1970s.12 of post-colonialistcriticism, this global vision In popular culturetoo, lifeon Earthwas read has not entirelydisappeared as a mastering in new ways. Computer-based global invento- gaze. High-technologyindustries, largely con- ries, made possible throughthe very agencies cerned with communication (computers, tele- and technologies thatan optimisticModernism communications, media, and transportation), had generated, seemed to reveal a nature that have dominated global economic trends over had been scarred and brutalized by human the past decade, and forthem 22727 serves as activityrather than "improved" for a common an appropriate successor to the global corpo- humanity, an Earth despoiled rather than rate symbols of the post-war years. They per- adorned by human achievement. In the four sist in the One-world reading in which the years between Earthriseand 22727, a spate of Apollo image signifiessecular mastery of the texts predicted environmentaldoomsday as a world through spatial control (Figure 9). By consequence of global human activity:Paul contrast, for green environmental organiza- Ehrlich'sPopulation Bomb (1968), BarryCom- tions (alternative political parties, ecological moner's The Closing Circle (1971), the Club of pressure groups, educational agencies), Rome's Limitsto Growth (1972), and Ehrlich Earthriseand 22727 represent a quasi-spiritual and Ehrlich's Blueprint for Survival (1972). It interconnectedness and the vulnerabilityof was theirreading of the Earthas a unitaryand terrestriallife. For them the Whole-earthread- fragileorganism that placed Earthriseon the ing signifiesthe necessityof planetarysteward- dustjacketof James Lovelock's text Gaia (1978), ship, best practiced from an insider's localist and 22727 on the cover of The Whole Earth position. In Western culture both readings Review. Testimonyto the impact of the mes- originatein Genesis, the textthat captioned the sage conveyed by these textswas the celebra- firsttelevised pictures of Earthrise.They con- tion of the first"Earth Day" in the United States tinue to intersecttoday in the varied uses of in 1970. the Apollo space images. Emphasis on the loneliness of Earth in the Criticalattention to the complex intertextu- blackness of space, so powerfullyrepresented ality of these images calls into question any in 22727, drew upon a reading of America as neat separation of their associated readings, old as WilliamBradford and the PuritanFathers, and requires us to confront instead certain of the New World as mankind's last best hope, shared featuresof One-world and Whole-earth of a people cut offfrom the restof life,required ideologies. Both are totalizing discourses that to attend to theirown redemption and to seek effectivelyignore the geographical specificity moral renewal withinthe confines of its sepa- of cartographicrepresentation on 22727. Read rate space (Worster 1988). It was an attitude cartographically,this representationis as par- against which One-world advocates like tial, regional, and perspectival as any other Dengler and MacLeish had struggled-and pre- (Harley 1992); it maps Africa and Antarctica. vailed-in the early years of World War II. But But 22727 is best read conically and not car-

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Figure 9. One-world and high technology.Advertisment for TRW Engines Inc., Cincinnatiusing composite of Earthriseand 22727 appearing in FortuneMagazine, April23, 1990. ?TRW Inc., 1990.

tographically;it is iconic. Both interpretations faroutside the bounds of Earthseemingly con- insist on the globalityof the image; both are stitutean unchallengeable vantage point. inattentiveto the specificityof theircultural and Some commentatorshave noted the master- historicalassumptions; and, in practice, both ing perspectives on the Apollo images, and obscure local perspectives on the world in they have drawn on psychoanalyticand femi- theirclaims to speak for a common humanity. nist theory to challenge their culturalauthor- Each effectivelyexemplifies the Apollonian ity-albeit without examining the specificityof urge to establish a transcendental, univocal, the photographs. Peter Bishop has sought to and universallyvalid vantage point fromwhich unravel the historical routes whereby the to sketch a totalizing discourse. Each, in ap- Whole-earth image acquired its "present mas- pealing to this image, proclaims a geographical sive coherence." He finds in it echoes of an identity for a unitary world, although the archetype of unityfor which an alienated West Whole-earth reading opens the possibilityof aches in the face of the immense voids of non-visual appropriation and, thus perhaps, a space and time that Modern science has cre- more Dionysian response. Fundamentally,the ated for humanity'sfragmented psyche. "From geographical imaginationsthat both readings evolutionary imaginings came images of hu- articulateare obdurately Western and ethno- manity crushed beneath the burden of a re- centric. In both cases, Earthriseand 22727 morseless continuityor negated into a state of serve well. The apparent objectivityof the pho- despairing ennui by a limitless expanse of tographyand the positioningof the camera so space and time" (Bishop 1986:68). The picture

This content downloaded from 169.229.138.41 on Tue, 19 Jan 2016 20:35:55 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Contested Global Visions 289 of the earthly disk appears reassuring as an that the Apollo project represents a male fan- image of universalholism, but the appearance tasy: of this "calm oceanic metaphor" coincided, It's naturalthe Boys should whoop it up for Bishop notes, with a heightened sense of so huge a phallic triumph,an adventure global crisis in the post-war era of nuclear de- it would not have occurred to women terrence. All imaginingsare attended by their to thinkworthwhile, . . . shadow, and the shadow of the holistic Earth (W. H. Auden, quoted in Gaarb 1990:272) is one of fragmentation: The alternativeWhole-earth interpretation of The questionsposed by a globalimagining are in 22727, with its emphases on the "veiling" of themselvesshattering. They consistently fragment Earthin atmosphere, itsfragility, and vulnerabil- the comfortone mighttake in a prematureholism ity, might also be seen as gendering a vir- ... thisimage was bornsimultaneously with one of itsown doom ... These murmuringsare the gin/motherEarth as Other to a male conscious- worldcalling attention to itself,reestablishing itself ness. As a self-styledecofeminist, Gaarb is less as a psychicreality. (Bishop 1986:69) comfortable with this conclusion, enquiring whether the Whole-earth image retains Bishop's analysis recognizes the inspirational sufficientvirtue to be rescued fromthe alien- quality of the Whole-earth image, its simulta- atingand exploitativeimpulses itembodies. His neous appeal to global utopia and global de- answer draws upon sentimentssimilar to those struction.Like Michael Collins, he reminds us identifiedby Bishop: thatthe very distance and of the sublime in these images, whose appeal bleak isolation of the Earth represented in to awe and wonder is more than merelyuplift- 22727 perhaps stimulates"a deep ache of longing and humbling;it is also terrifying.Earthrise ing for a beauty we somehow cannot touch." and 22727 share this quality.The formercon- Unlike Bishop, he does not identifythe shadow trasts the shining but shadowed silver Earth that accompanies such sublimity but rather against the deathly gray of a cratered lunar appeals to us to "see without staring,and al- landscape that seems almost post-nuclear;13 low the Earthto speak to us throughthis im- the latter,the majestic color, geometric purity, age, to declare its own subjecthood" (Gaarb and harmonicunity of earth,water, and airwith 1990:276-277). Perhaps the sheer distance of the stygianinfinity of its encirclingvoid. the Earthin these images, which obscures their In contrastto Bishop, Yaakov JeromeGaarb cartographyand renders them almost tenable, offersa more political critique of the Apollo constitutesthe challenge that they present to photographs. He points out the inherentirony the gaze. of Whole-earth images which, while read as representationsof the round globe, in reality show a disk, a two-dimensionalimage thatrep- resents the Earthaccording to established pic- Conclusion torialconventions and thatachieves coherence only withinthese conventions. 22727 may be Analyses of the Apollo photographs,of their compared with the "bird's eye" view of land- composition, color and content,the conditions scape which has conflated cartography and of theirproduction, the contexts of theirrepro- landscape paintingsince the European Renais- duction, and the texts that accompanied their sance. It is a perspective which privilegesvi- culturalreception, give some support to both sion over other senses in the mimeticachieve- these interpretationsof the Whole-earthimage ment, rendering the object of vision passive even as they draw attentionto an alternative, and feminized, offeringup merely voyeuristic and still popular, One-world reading. These pleasure. Certainlythe sustained reference to two discourses associated with the photo- seeing the world as it really is, to men and graphs draw upon and extend ideas of human brotherhood, together with the references to territorialitythat have deep historical, geo- the landscape traditionfound in MacLeish's graphical,and culturalroots in Western imag- and Dickey's One-world writingson the pho- inings. One-world is a geopolitical conception tographs lend support to this interpretation. coeval with the European and Christiansense Gaarb argues not only that 22727 is "the mag- of imperium.It signifies the expansion of a spe- num opus of patriarchalconsciousness," ex- cific socio-economic order across space. tended to the whole of the naturalworld, but Throughout Western history,this has been

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based in large measure on militaryand political drafts: Stephen Daniels, Mike Heffernan, Neil Doel, and anonymous referees. I also power. Today's imperium is primarilyan eco- Roberts, Ron acknowledge the financial support of the Nuffield nomic and technological order of which Foundation for the research project of which this 22727's erasure of political boundaries allows formsa part. representation in the networks of financial, media, or communications linksetched across an unbounded globe. Whole-earth is, by con- Notes trast,an environmentalistconception that appeals to the organic and spiritualunity of ter- 1. The distance is approximate since it was not re- restriallife. Humans are incorporated through corded by the crew. It is also worth mentioning that the actual photographer remains unknown. visceral bonds between land and life(individ- The three crew members aboard Apollo 17, ual, family,community), bonds that have tradi- Gene Sherman, Ron Evans, and Jack Schmitt, tionallybeen localized, frequentlyas mystical have refused to state which of them took the ties of blood and soil. Despite this rhetoricof sequence. I do not deal in this essay with Soviet space photographs. The qualityof theirfilm was localism, Whole-earth readings of the Apollo much lower than that available to American images have difficultykeeping faithwith the crews, pictures appeared red-tinged and mud- local because the photograph's erasure of hu- died, with poor color resolution.Also, they pro- man signs implies the extension of organic duced no whole Earth photographs taken by achieved the bonds across all humanityand the entireglobe. hand, and none of their pictures widespread cultural impact of the images dis- In this too we mightnote the echoes of West- cussed here. ern Christianity'straditional missionary impera- 2. Ptolemy'sfourth projection is based upon a con- tive. A Whole-earth interpretation seems structionwhich assumes an observer standing drawn, like so many Renaissance globe gazers, beyond the globe, fixingthe line of sight on a vanishing point along the earth's axis. A famous toward a transcendentalvitalism as a basis for engraving by Albrecht Durer illustratesthe pro- universalorder and harmony. jection withan eye looking in on the Earth.It was It is highly questionable whether the con- widely reproduced in sixteenth-centurypublica- ceptions of space, environment,and humanity tions of Ptolemy's Geography. drawn from these images can reconcile such 3. Considerable criticalattention has recentlybeen given to the significanceattached to seeing as divergent but equally totalizingtendencies in the dominant mode of power/knowledge in Western discourse. An alternative approach Western society since the fifteenthcentury and mightavoid the "visualistassumption" under- its connection to the philosophical separation of lying the idea of the world as a globe and the active human subject froma passive, objective nature.The distanced and gendered charac- replace it with an older notion of the world as ter of the gaze has become a dominant theme sphere, a body that contains life,including hu- in some feministtheory (Bryson1983; Harraway man life-worlds and that is itself contained 1 991). withingreater spheres beyond (Ingold 1992)- 4. The 1958 Space Act establishingNASA directed all of the informationthat it spheres that are completely absent from the the agency to place gathered into the public domain, unless spe- Apollo photographs. Such a perspective, in ad- cificallyexcluded forreasons of nationalsecurity. dition to immediatelylocalizing us withinthe Any citizen of the United States may therefore world rather than beyond it, might, in John request and reproduce the Apollo space photo- Kennedy's words and Michael Collins's hopes, graphs withoutfee. 5. This paper deals only with American and Euro- "returnus safelyto the earth." pean receptions of the Apollo images. Beyond the Western world they may have been under- stood ratherdifferently. I am aware thatthe photographs have been widely reproduced in Is- Acknowledgments lamic countries and beyond, but explication of the meanings that other cultures attach to them I am gratefulto staffat the Lyndon B. Johnson Space would require detailed culturalanalysis. Centerat Houston,Texas fortheir help duringmy 6. Most of the scientific literaturedealing with researchfor this paper, specifically Doug Ward,for- space photographygives only passing attention mer Directorof PublicAffairs, Bill Robbins of the to the specific images discussed here since they PublicAffairs Office, Jack Riley of the Media Services are of littlescientific value. Photography'simpor- Office,Mike Gentryof StillPhotographic Research, tance is decidedly subordinate to that of remote and JoeyPellerin of the HistoryOffice. Thanks are sensing. Writingson the Whole-earth image are also due to colleagueswho commentedon earlier discussed below; in general they ignore individ-

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ual picturesand do not stress the uniqueness of scape featuresof the lunarsurface and those de- the images specified here. picted in RichardMisrach's (1990) powerfulpho- 7. NASA used John Glenn's photography of Earth tographsof the Nevada desert exploringthe sub- to support its case for manned space flight8n limity of a landscape devastated by nuclear the grounds that the human photographer was testing. much more flexible in identifyinggood targets than pre-set mechanical cameras. The debate is discussed in detail in Mack (1990). On the significance given to the graphic representationof References the eyewitness account as historicalevidence in an earlierperiod, see Fortini-Brown's(1988) dis- *AII NASA in cussion of Venetian narrativepainting. references are to materialsheld The HistoryOffice at the LyndonB. JohnsonSpace Center he- 8. While a significantnumber of inter-warpilot (JSC), Houston. roes were women, AmyJohnston being the most Atkinson,D. famous,the pilot was characteristicallygendered 1993. The Discourses of Geography male, and certainlythe fighterpilot was male. and Geopolitics in Fascist Italy.Paper presented 9. The French geographer Elis&e Reclus was re- at the annual conference of the Instituteof British sponsible for the design of one of the largest Geographers, Royal Holloway College London. globes ever produced; he designed it for the Bishop, P. 1986. The Shadows of the HolisticEarth. Paris Universal Exhibition of 1900. The great Spring:An Annual of ArchetypalPsychology and globe produced forthe headquarters of the Brit- JungianThought. Dallas: Spring Publications. ish Society for the Propagation of Christian Bolton, R., ed. 1989. The Contest of Meaning: Knowledge at the height of Britain's imperial Critical Histories of Photography. Cambridge, dominationnow graces the entrance to the Cam- Massachusetts: MIT Press. bridge UniversityLibrary. Bryson,N. 1983. Visionand Painting:The Logic of 10. On the culturalsignificance of Christmas in the United States,see McGreevy (1990). For a poetic the Gaze. London: Macmillan. descriptionof the universalcelestial harmonyas- Bunkse, E. V. 1990. St. Exupery'sGeography Les- sociated with Christmas,see John Milton's Ode son: Art and Science in the Creation of Land- on the Morning of Christ's Nativity.The cos- scape Values. Annals of the Association of mographical associations of Christmas are pro- American Geographers 80:96-1 08. found, and relate not only to its occurrence at Club of Rome. 1971. The Limitsto Growth; A Re- the wintersolstice, but also the astrologicalasso- port for the Club of Rome's Project on the Pre- ciations of the Magi. dicament of Mankind. New York: Universe. 11. Turning importantevents into dramatic public Commoner, B. 1971. The Closing Circle. 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Cosgrove, Denis. 1994. Contested Global Visions: One-World, Whole-Earth,and the Apollo Space Photographs. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 84(2):270-294. Ab- stract.

The paper examines two photographs of the Earthtaken during the Apollo Space program in 1968 and 1972 as representationsof the Earthwhose cartographicsignificance is of less impor- tance than their relationswith the contemporaryWestern geographical imagination.Earthrise and AS17-148-22727 are unique as eyewitness photographs of the terracqueous globe. They are interpretedwithin a historicalcontext of seeing and representationin which Western culture has consistentlyassociated the globe with Christianityand imperialism.The essay summarizes certain technical aspects of Apollo space photography,examines the iconography of the two images, and places them in the twentieth-centurycultural contexts of aerial views, both military and civil, airborne photography,and geopolitics, while paying particularattention to the mas- teringgaze associated with these practices as well as the specificallyAmerican use of global iconography in the post-war period. Specific texts structuredearly culturalinterpretation of the Apollo photographs,most notablythe writingsof the American Modernist intellectualArchibald MacLeish, the astronautsthemselves, and the American press. These textsproduce two distinct

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but related interpretations,here termed One-world and Whole-earth. The respective uses of the Apollo space photographs as global spatial and environmentalimages over the past two decades reveal theirsignificance in shaping aspects of the contemporaryWestern geographical imagination.Key Words: cartography,gaze, geographical imagination,geopolitics, globe, images, Modernism, One-world, representation,space photography,Whole-earth.

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