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Some astronauts didn’t want to bring TV cameras on board – but the footage captured has gone down as some of the most memorable in human history.
Christmas Eve 1968, the crew of Apollo 8 – Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and Bill Anders – were about to get their first glimpse of the far side of the Moon.
“We fired the spacecraft engine something like four minutes to slow down enough to get into lunar orbit,” says Borman. “We’re about halfway through when we looked down and there was the Moon.”
“The lunar surface was terribly distressed with meteorites, holes, craters, volcanic residue,” he says. “But one of the things that struck me was there's absolutely no colour, it was either grey or black or white.”
“It was a very interesting first view
But the most captivating view came as they swung back around on the fourth orbit and Anders spotted the Earth in the command module window.
“Oh my God, look at that picture over there! There's the Earth coming up. Wow, is that pretty!” he exclaimed. “You got a colour film, Jim? Hand me a roll of colour, quick, would you?”
These cartridges containing reels of 70mm film could be easily swapped on the crew’s Hasselblad cameras.
“Take several, take several of them,” said Lovell. “Here, give it to me!”
Once the film was developed back on Earth several weeks later, Nasa image 2383 (and the frames either side) would become one of the most famous pictures of all time.
The picture, showing the Earth in the context of the barren Moon, was one of the unexpected achievements of the Apollo programme.
“I think it's probably one of the more significant pictures that humans have ever taken,” agrees Borman. “The Earth was the only thing in the entire universe that had any colour – a beautiful sight, we're very fortunate to live on this planet.”
In the run-up to the Apollo missions, there was tremendous resistance among many Nasa engineers and astronauts to the idea of carrying TV cameras for live broadcasts from space. It was frivolous and would interfere with the mission, they argued.
The formidable head of mission control, Chris Kraft, thought otherwise and insisted that TV was a way of showing American taxpayers how their money was being spent.
The first astronauts to carry a TV camera into orbit were the crew of Apollo 7 – Wally Schirra, Don Eisele and Walt Cunningham. After a shaky start, they soon got the hang of adding a little showbiz to the space programme.
Despite their shortcomings, these first TV broadcasts from space – a total of seven – nonetheless won an enthusiastic global following. They gave the missions an immediacy that wasn’t possible with film or photography.
When the Apollo 7 crew returned to Earth, they were rewarded with an Emmy Award from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences for their efforts.
Later missions would push the boundaries of TV technology, with improved cameras, transmitters and content. Apollo 8 broadcast live from lunar orbit for the first time and, during Apollo 10, the crew produced the first colour TV shows from the Moon.
Broadcasting from the relatively bright and controlled conditions of the Apollo spacecraft was very different from transmitting the first images from the surface of another world. But Nasa realised it was essential to broadcast mankind’s first footsteps on the Moon.
Nasa wasn’t taking any risks with ensuring the live video reached the Earth and arranged for the transmissions to be received by 64-metre wide dishes in Goldstone, California and at Parkes in New South Wales, Australia.
Engineers at Parkes spent months working with Nasa to prepare the giant radio telescope to receive the first TV pictures from the lunar surface. On the 21 July 1969, everything was ready for the big event but then the weather suddenly changed.
“Just minutes before the Moonwalk was due to begin, a violent squall hit the telescope with winds that were over the safe operating speeds,” says Parkes operations scientist John Sarkissian. “The astronauts may have been on the Sea of Tranquility on the Moon,” says Sarkissian, “but it was the ocean of storms here.”
During the later Apollo missions, a TV camera was fixed to the lunar rover to give viewers a drivers-eye view of the Moon. The camera was remote-controlled from Earth, which also enabled operators to capture one of the coolest shots in TV history. As Apollo 17 blasts-off from the Moon, the camera tilts to follow its trajectory
Around 600 million people watched as Neil Armstrong took his first tentative small step on the lunar surface. At that time, it was the world’s largest-ever TV audience.
But by the time of Apollo 13, just nine months later, the world had already lost interest. As Jim Lovell, Jack Swigert and Fred Haise travelled to the Moon, none of the national US TV networks carried their broadcast.
28,000: Distance the Blue Marble image taken from, in miles
As the Apollo 17 crew headed to the Moon for the final time in 1972, they were instructed to take a picture looking back at the Earth. The image – known as the Blue Marble – gives a unique perspective of the whole Earth hanging in the blackness of space. Not only does it show the South Pole but it puts Africa – not the USA – at the centre.
Even when we return to the Moon, these first images – particularly those of Earth – will have a special place in the history of humankind.
In the words of Apollo 8 commander, Frank Borman: “I don't think any of us paid any attention to the fact that we would be going all the way to the Moon and be more interested in looking at the Earth.”