UPDATE: So, I refined the design a little more since, as of this writing, Apollo 8 would have been passing into the gravitational influence of the Moon. Still a day away from making their famous Christmas Eve broadcast.
UPDATE 2: Tweaked the 8 a little because the default “bevel & emboss” function leaves a little to be desired.
Read my blog. It will not surprise you to know I’m a fan of space exploration and astronomy. Want to be humbled? Study astronomy. Only then will you begin to grasp your insignificance in the immensity of all things. That’s ok though because it makes you realize how lucky you are to be able to realize that. Ok, now that’s out of the way.
Apollo VIII (or Apollo 8 to people who aren’t roman numeral nerds) launched in December of 1968. It orbited the Moon on Christmas. It was a genuinely great moment for mankind. The world was in turmoil but a quarter of a million miles away, humans were proving that we can do great things. Yes, the Moon race was politically motivated. I get it. For a long time, I wasn’t comfortable with that for some reason. I moved past that to realize how amazing that entire era of space exploration was. The golden age, if you will. Perhaps we’re on the verge of another?
I’ve been poking around at a couple of Apollo 8 posters. I wanted to incorporate the “8”, much like the mission patch did. I wanted to show a decent representation of the Earth and Moon in their respective positions. The positioning would be that of when the famous “Earthrise” photo was taken. It isn’t done but I wanted to just post it anyway. Expect a few more things related to Apollo in the coming months, and years. It’s been half a century, after all. There are some technical notes below the image.
Final Version:
View draft here
Nerdy Stuff
The “8” is intended to represent both the mission number and the apparent path or trajectory. Basically a round trip but in figure 8. That’s basically what they did but if you look here this is more representative of what the actual path would look like. It’s cool but it doesn’t look at all like an 8.
At launch, the Moon is at let’s say, point A. If you aim for point A then by the time you get there, there’ll be nothing there. You have to aim for point B, where there is currently nothing waiting for you. In the 3 days it takes to travel that distance you will intercept the Moon. Actually, well before that, you enter the gravitational influence of the Moon and Newtonian physics takes over. Eh, Newtonian physics are actually at work from the very beginning but I digress.
The grid is artificial but I added it to give a sense of spatial-ness. The thing is that the grid is not aligned with anything celestial but positioned purely for aesthetics.
The image of Earth is the actual Earthrise photo from Apollo 8. The Moon image is taken from the EPIC camera that’s currently about a million miles away. It has a fantastic view of the far side of the Moon, otherwise, I’d be using an image of the moon that’s from the wrong angle. As much artistic license as I took, I did want to somewhat accurately represent both celestial bodies.
Last but not least, the words you see, such as “APOLLO”, do not exist in space. Hey, you’d be surprised what people believe these days.