Wallpapers: Three From Apollo
A few decades ago, about 12 men walked upon the surface of another celestial body for the first time in history. At one point, Neil Armstrong looked up at Earth and blotted it out with his thumb and thought the significance of that simple act. “That’s home. That’s us. On it, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever lived, lived out their lives. The aggregate of all our joys and sufferings, thousands of confident religions, ideologies and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilizations, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every hopeful child, every mother and father, every inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every superstar, every supreme leader, every saint and sinner in the history of our species, lived there on a mote of dust, suspended in a sunbeam”. While these were not Armstrong’s words, but instead Carl Sagan’s, it is clear that it is along these similar lines he was thinking.
It is easy to forget how incredible those moments were as they happened so long ago, and the first of these was some months before I even existed as a person. We have grown accustomed to these images of men walking on the moon, in no small part because a follow up is so long overdue that they seem antiquated or quaint. So it seemed to me that out of 50 wallpapers uploaded it might be appropriate to include man’s first exploration of any of these places as part of the collection.
January 29th, 2007 at 9:35 am
Isn’t the number 12 people, not 18? Apollos 11,12,14,15,16,17…
January 29th, 2007 at 12:07 pm
I really like the orbital pic.
I just came across the YH! post for this blog and feel horrible I haven’t been here sooner. You have some of the best news/imagery regarding anything space-related. The layouts of these wallpapers is very nice, indeed.
I would like, however, the consideration for a non-landscape variety as well. Unfortunately, I don’t have a widescreen display, though I prefer those kinds of desktop images.
January 30th, 2007 at 6:50 am
DOH! I am such a n00b. Smart enough to remember that 13 failed, but stupidly… I just multiplied by 3 which does not account for each mission one man stayed in orbit while only 2 descended to the surface. So yes… the number would be 12 on the surface and 18 total astronauts on those missions which landed men on the moon (fixed).
January 30th, 2007 at 6:53 am
I REALLY want to do some resizes for other monitors, but doing it in PS would be so slow. So, I am hoping to make a screensaver which I can just set some numbers and screen grab the new layout proportions. That will likely come after I have posted all the wallpapers, of which I have about 80 and posted around 50 at this point.
January 30th, 2007 at 7:36 am
Not to nit-pick again
but in that orbital pic it states the source as Apollo 9. This can’t be right as 9 never left Earth orbit. IIRC it was a checkout of the LEM in low Earth orbit.
January 30th, 2007 at 9:52 am
HRM… i see… you are again correct. 9 was the first test of the lunar vehicles and since 8 orbited the moon i assumed that 9 did as well… ass-umption. Now I have to figure out where that image came from. Definitely too close to the moon to be in Earth orbit… it must be from 10.
January 30th, 2007 at 10:07 am
oh my… it was apollo 16.
January 30th, 2007 at 11:14 pm
fixed
February 2nd, 2007 at 12:05 am
i think i was drunk when i originally made those.
April 11th, 2008 at 10:39 pm
Very nice! I like the moon walk one the best!
March 1st, 2010 at 7:43 pm
Thanks so much! So useful