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 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/ info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Taylor & Francis, Ltd. and Association of American Geographers are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Annals of the Association of American Geographers. http://www.jstor.org 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 re- cord forthe waitingpress. One of the images- number AS1 7-148-22727 taken at some 21,750 nautical miles 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 photo- graphic 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. 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 271 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 repre- sentations 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 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 272 Cosgrove 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 cartographicrep- resentation 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 dis- courses-all of which prefiguresthe production and earlyreception of the Apollo space images (Jacob 1992). Of course, the use of the sphere as an im- perial 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 stand- ing 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