NASA 50th anniversary year continues to be celebrated, this time by the Smithsonian’s Air & Space Magazine, who posted their pick of their top fifty photographs from NASA history. As they say in the introduction they know only fifty pics means they will inevitably miss some important moments, they know some people will be annoyed that other moments were missed out of the list and that the Apollo moon missions dominate (but why shouldn’t they? They were one of the triumphs of the last century). I’ve been a space geek as long as I have been a science fiction geek; I don’t remember now which came first, but both interests have complimented one another over the years. Growing up during the Space Age, watching the late (and much missed) Carl Sagan’s Cosmos one night and Doctor Who the next – it wasn’t hard to be a space geek; posters of Yuri Gagarin and Armstrong shared wall space in my childhood bedroom with my Star Trek posters above bookshelves of comics, Doctor Who novels and Asimov books.
(Earth Rise, taken by the crew of Apollo 8 as they circled the Moon in 1968, the furthest out any human being had ever been from home. The year this pic was taken on Earth students were rioting in Paris, the Civil Rights movement was campaigned for the simple dignity of equality, the Vietnam War was raging and the Cold War superpowers faced each other with awful atomic arsenals. And then there is this simple, serene image of our home floating in the darkness. Puts it in perspective)
(the crew of the fictional starship USS Enterprise pose with Star Trek creator Gene Rodenberry in front of the prototype Shuttle Enterprise in 1976. I love this shot)
Then the two collided wonderfully. To non Trek fans it won’t mean much other than a bit of silly frivolity and a bit of a joke. But to those of us who love Trek and real space exploration it was a brilliant moment of fusion – the first Shuttle (then an exciting new development, now, sadly, nearing the end of its chequered life), the one used to test the design of the aerodynamics as it was carried piggy-back style on a 747 then released to fly back to Earth, was named Enterprise. Fans had campaigned for the name, no doubt helped by the number of NASA scientists who were themselves fans (many still acknowledge the show and its successors as part of their inspiration to become scientists), and so in 1976 out rolled the Shuttle Enterprise, complete with most of the original Star Trek cast. When the band broke into the Star Trek theme there were cheers. Science fiction met science fact, the future looked amazing (in a way that it sadly no longer does) and for an eight year old geek boy it was amazing. Actually it still is.
Star Trek, the Shuttle, Concorde… what happened to that bright, Dan Dare future? 2008 is nearly done and I’m no nearer my long-promised holiday on the moon. But the images remain and they are still deeply inspiring, reminding us that when we really, really try as a species we can make some of the romances of science fiction into reality. Yeah, I know, you may say I’m a dreamer. But I’m not the only one. (link via Boing Boing)
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