Earthrise revisited

The Artemis II mission is heading home after successfully looping around the moon over the Easter weekend. Two days from now, they’ll splash down in the Pacific Ocean, off the coast of San Diego. NASA has been sharing images taken by the four astronauts on board Integrity, the mission’s gumdrop-shaped capsule, as it passed behind the moon. This includes a stunning Earthset and a dramatic solar eclipse (featuring a cameo appearance by several planets).

These images have rekindled the hope and wonder inspired by Apollo 8, the first crewed mission to visit the moon. At the time, much like this week, another Christian festival was underway. It was Christmas Eve 1968. As the Apollo 8 astronauts orbited, they watched the moon’s grey and desolate, crater-pocked surface passing below. Then, something unexpected happened.

The Earth began rising above the horizon. This delicate, blue marble was beguiling. It sat alone in the vastness of space. A fragile, spherical island of life in the inky darkness. Every aspect of the Apollo mission, including a photography timeline, had been planned well in advance. However, nobody anticipated this moment. It caught everyone by surprise.

Apollo 8’s earthrise photos inspired a generation and kick-started the environmental movement that endures today. Once again, Artemis II has captured similar images, reminding us of our human frailty. Apollo 8 astronaut Jim Lovell talked about a moment in flight when the simple act of raising his thumb in front of him was enough to hide the Earth.

“Everything you’ve ever known is behind your thumb,” he said. “All the world’s problems, everything. It kind of shows you how relative life is and how insignificant we all are here on Earth. Because we are all on a rather small spaceship here.”

 

One American wrote a simple message to the Apollo astronauts shortly after their return. “You saved 1968”. It’s all too easy to forget that 53 years ago, America had endured a chaotic and violent year. Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy had both been assassinated. Race riots had caused many American cities to burn. The Vietnam War was in full swing, and the protest movement against it was growing. Lyndon Johnson had dramatically decided not to seek reelection.

Step forward 53 years, and history seems to be repeating itself. America is embroiled in an increasingly unpopular war. The nation is deeply polarised. A looming threat of recession hangs over the global economy. Once again, our world feels harsh and the future uncertain. Then, a tiny spacecraft circling the moon sends back an image of hope. Once again, we’ve left Earth only to look back and rediscover it anew. This is why I love spaceflight. In its finest hour, it gives us hope for the future.

UPDATE:  11 April 2026

The Artemis crew has just splashed down safely in the Pacific about 100km off the coast of San Diego. Humanity's first flight to the moon in more than 53 years has delivered a textbook landing. The live coverage beaming from space as the Orion capsule entered the atmosphere was extraordinary.  

Incredibly, we watched the capsule separate from its service module live, and then saw the first glow of reentry happen in real time. In an age of AI, the vision was surreal. At times, it honestly looked fake. How sad it is to think that AI is tarnishing the magic of life's momentous events.

Watching Artemis splashdown was a rather poignant moment. As I child I vaguely recall watching an Apollo capsule splashdown on television. At the time, we were visiting family friends in Wellington. If I had to hazard a guess, I’d say this was Apollo 17 returning from the moon in December 1972. I would have been seven years old at the time, just old enough to recall such an historic event.

Living in two worlds

Today’s headlines reflect the best and worst of humanity. This morning, NASA launched a manned rocket that’s now heading for the moon. Artemis II is scheduled to spend ten days in space. For the next 25 hours, four astronauts will orbit the Earth at an altitude of 74,000km, checking and testing their Orion capsule's systems, before reigniting its service module engine and sending it towards the moon.

The astronauts won’t land on the moon’s surface. That feat is reserved for a future mission. Instead, they’ll loop around Earth’s natural satellite in what’s known as a free return lunar fly-by trajectory. This is a flight path that uses the moon’s gravity to automatically return the capsule to Earth without firing its rocket again.

In many ways, Artemis II resembles Apollo 8. This mission, which launched in December 1968, was the first time humans flew to the moon and returned safely to Earth. However, unlike the current mission, Apollo 8 went into orbit around the moon, circling it ten times before reigniting its rocket and returning to Earth.

Artemis II will establish at least one space exploration first. Its free-return trajectory will see it fly more than 7400 kilometres past the far side of the moon, more than 400,000 kilometres from Earth. This is the furthest any human has ever ventured into space. Apollo astronauts typically flew less than 120 km above the moon’s surface.

Artemis II represents human ingenuity at its finest. It’s a potent symbol of what we can achieve as a species when we aspire to greatness. It’s also an inspiring example of the USA’s extraordinary wealth, leadership and technical know-how.

Contrast this with the war currently unfolding in the Middle East. Five weeks ago, the USA and Israel launched a coordinated aerial attack on Iran. Since then, both nations have relentlessly bombed the Persian nation, destroying military assets and killing its leaders. Iran has responded by attacking its Gulf neighbours, damaging critical oil and gas production infrastructure, while attacks on tankers passing through the Strait of Hormuz have all but stopped oil from flowing out of the Middle East.

President Trump's rationale for starting the war and its ultimate objectives have morphed over time. However, one thing is clear. The quick and easy victory he plainly anticipated has failed to materialise. There's now every prospect of the USA becoming bogged down in prolonged conflict or withdrawing shortly, only to be drawn back in to finish the job at some future point.

The Iranian regime’s resolve hasn’t weakened, despite the devastation of American and Israeli airborne attacks. Instead, global economic activity is cracking under the strain. To quote a recent commentator, “The closure of the Strait of Hormuz has transformed economic prospects globally from the relatively benign to inflationary and, very possibly, in a worst-case scenario, deeply recessionary.”

What seems to have become an increasingly pointless conflict is now at risk of damaging the world’s economy for months, if not years, to come. Iran’s regime remains intact and inevitably more motivated than ever to accelerate its ambitions to develop a nuclear weapon. I'm not sure it's made the world a safer place. 

Meanwhile, here in Australia, most commentators, including the Reserve Bank of Australia, expect inflation to peak at five per cent, further interest rate rises, higher unemployment and greater economic uncertainty. It’s not the kind of year anyone wanted. The USA’s capricious actions in the Middle East stand in stark contrast to this morning’s historic launch at the Kennedy Space Centre. It's like we're living in two completely different worlds.

UPDATE: 10:58am, 3 April

I've just watched live as the Orion spacecraft completed its Translunar Injection Burn, a five-minute rocket burn that sends it to the moon. The last time humans headed for the moon, they were on board Apollo 17. This final moon landing mission took place in December 1972, more than 53 years ago. 

UPDATE: 4 April

The image above was taken by one of the astronauts aboard Orion. It shows the Atlantic Ocean bordered by Africa on the right and cloud-covered South America on the left. If you look closely, you can see auruoa glowing over both poles. Venus makes a guest appearance in the top left corner. The last time we saw an image like this was during Apollo 17.

UPDATE: 7 April

The Orion capsule has safely swung around the far side of the moon today.  The four astronauts on board are now on their way back to Earth. NASA published the image above overnight. If you look carefully, you'll see Australia and a heavily cloud-covered New Zealand are on display. I've rotated the image 90 degrees to make them easier to spot. Awesome!

Getting to the point

It's time for another retro post from the Kodak era.  This time, it's Atlanta, Georgia, and the Florida Keys. I made my first and only visit to Atlanta in January 1996. On the same trip, I also visited Florida for the first time. This included time in Orlando and Fort Lauderdale, before driving down the Florida Keys to Key West.

I was flown to Georgia by Scientific Atlanta, a leader in cable television technology that’s long since disappeared. The company flew me in business class for an intensive week of training and face-to-face meetings with its marketing team. At the time, Scientific Atlanta was bidding for a nationwide Optus Vision cable telephony contract. My company was handling its technology public relations activities and I was the account’s lead consultant. 

Scientific Atlanta was based in Lawrenceville, a northern suburb of Atlanta. As a result, it booked me into a local hotel, located more than 50km from Downtown Atlanta. However, without transport, I didn’t get to spend time in the city proper, aside from an expensive evening at an inner-city nightclub. To get to the club, I hired a town car and driver for the evening which cost more than USD75. It was a lot of money for a 30-year-old back then and there weren’t any rental car outlets in the immediate area.

My trip got off to a rocky start. A week before I flew out, my company laptop was stolen. Opportunistic thieves had noticed a window ajar in my first-floor apartment. They'd climbed onto a nearby roof and broken in. This resulted in an 11th-hour scramble between Christmas and New Year's Eve to secure a replacement device before my flight departed on 3 January. 

Years later, out of the blue, I received a call from Five Dock Police Station. They’d caught someone trying to pawn the stolen Digital HiNote at a secondhand shop. I attended an interview with a police officer who agreed that, thanks to the passage of time, the laptop was worthless. Its technology had long since been superseded. It's good to know the police maintain a stolen goods register long after the initial crime was committed.

Once my week of training and meetings was done, I flew to Orlando. Gary, an American friend from Fort Lauderdale, collected me from the airport. We spent three days exploring Disney World, the Epcot Centre and Florida’s Space Coast. At the time, the Space Shuttle Endeavour was on the launch pad undergoing final preparations for launch. A few days later, while in Fort Lauderdale, we saw it power into orbit on television.

Gary offered to extend our time in Orlando to watch the launch in person. However, I decided to forgo the opportunity as I didn’t want to pass up a planned visit to the Florida Keys. I quietly regretted the decision for years until I finally witnessed a live shuttle launch a decade later.

Seeing the best of American space technology up close and personal was a dream come true. Visiting the Kennedy Space Centre had always been a childhood obsession. I recall watching a live broadcast of the first Space Shuttle launch in 1981. Unfortunately, the launch was scrubbed as the countdown approached the five-minute mark. Television New Zealand didn't broadcast its successful launch a few days later.

In the years since I’ve been lucky enough to return to Kennedy on two other occasions. For this inaugural visit, Gary and I booked a bus tour that drove past the launch pad and stopped briefly outside the towering Vehicle Assembly Building. Beyond Kennedy, I loved riding Space Mountain at Disney World. Sadly, the Epcot Centre proved a real letdown. I doubt I'll ever return.

Gary and I drove from Orlando to Fort Lauderdale to spend time with his friends. I don’t recall much beyond a string of nights out on the town. Although we enjoyed an afternoon visiting the fabled Miami Beach, We stopped for a late lunch at Compass Café. At the time, it was located on the ground floor of the Waldorf Towers Hotel, a beautifully restored Art Deco building on the Miami Beach beachfront.

A few days later Gary drove four of us down the Florida Keys for three fun-filled, alcohol-fueled, nights in Key West. Driving over the Seven Mile Bridge was a real highlight. I'd seen images of this extraordinary structure in an old National Geographic magazine. As the name suggests, it spans an extended stretch of open water linking Boot and Big Pine Keys. There's something undeniably surreal about driving for miles over the open sea.

Like all good tourists, I had my photo taken with Key West’s iconic monument marking the Southernmost Point of the Continental U.S.A. It's the image that opens this post. The colourful concrete buoy, erected in 1983, immortalises the city’s geographic claim to fame. As the sign says, it’s a mere 90 miles to Cuba from here. In hindsight, it was probably the only real touristy thing we did in Key West.

My strongest memory of my time in Key West was an outrageous drag performance I saw one evening at 801 Bourbon Bar. I later discovered that the show, starring RV Beaumont, was considered one of the USA’s most iconic drag shows. Beaumont’s portrayal of Bette Midler, and Mary Poppins, including an outrageously suggestive performance of "A Spoonful of Sugar”, was truly legendary!

My summer vacation in Florida finally ended after landing in Sydney on the early morning of 21 January. I hope to return to Miami and the Florida Keys someday.  While I’m there, thanks to a childhood spent watching Gentle Ben, I'd love to take an airboat ride through the Everglades.

On the road to Lightning Ridge

The road to Lightning Ridge is long – or at the very least – our recent drive into the outback certainly was. We left Tamworth mid-morning after a brief drive up to the Oxley Scenic Lookout overlooking Tamworth, followed by a quick stop at the city’s iconic Golden Guitar. The view from the outlook was well worth the stop. Tamworth is bigger than you think (click on the panorama below and you’ll see what I mean).

Our drive inland took us first to Gunnedah. Here we stopped briefly at Porcupine Lookout to enjoy a picturesque view over the township. We then turned north and made our way to Narrabri and the CISIRO’s Paul Wild Observatory. This facility houses the Australia Telescope Compact Array, the perfect backdrop for a Hollywood science fiction blockbuster. 

 
The array is a radio telescope consisting of six identical 22-metre diameter dishes. Five of these can be moved along a 3km railway track while the sixth antenna is permanently fixed 3 km beyond the end of the track. A perpendicular spur tracks north for almost half a kilometre. Depending on the array’s final configuration, astronomers can set up an observation base line up to six kilometres long, or focus it over as little as 15 metres.

Our visit was timed perfectly. All of the mobile dishes were configured in close proximity making for some dramatic images. We spent an hour exploring the CSIRO’s informative visitor’s centre, and wandering the array trackway, before enjoying a late picnic lunch in the shadow of the array itself.

After lunch, we took to the road again and continued driving towards Lightning Ridge. We were surprised to see how lush and green the interior looks after its recent drought-busting rain. Our final hour of driving was a little hair-raising as our arrival in Lightning Ridge occurred 30 minutes after sunset. Australia’s native fauna is particularly active at dusk. As a result, driving on country roads in the early evening is rather risky. I’m pleased to report that we arrived safely without incident.

Woomera

As a self-confessed space geek, I’ve always wanted to visit Woomera.  It’s the closest thing we have to the Florida Space Coast in Australia.  Woomera township was the heartland of British and Australian rocket science for the better part of three decades.  It was here that scientists tested rockets and launched satellites into orbit, including Australia’s first and only satellite launched from Australian territory.

Construction of Woomera Village began in mid-1947 to cater for thousands of people arriving as part of the Anglo-Australian Project. During its heyday (1949–71), the village population reached around 7,000 as people lived and worked here.  Woomera Village initially operated as a "closed town" between 1947 and 1982, but today welcomes visits by the general public.

 The township itself is rather unique.  As one commentator rightly described it, the town’s surprisingly well-developed infrastructure and orderly layout could easily be mistaken for a quintessential Canberra suburb.  The roads are paved, shaded by trees and lined with well-maintained kerbs and sidewalks.  It bears little resemblance to the more ramshackle townscape you typically encounter in the Outback.

The town even boasts an indoor bowling alley, cinema, public pool and several well-maintained social clubs including an RSL Club despite being home to less than 300 people.  However, without a doubt, the real highlights for me were its rocket parks and museums.  

In the centre of town reside two rocket parks; with duelling rockets competing for attention on the opposing corners of a quiet intersection.  Each is populated by an impressive series of rockets and military hardware.  Highlights include a vertically mounted Blue Steel rocket, a Canberra bomber and the battered remains of a Redstone rocket used to launch Australia's first satellite.

The Woomera Heritage Centre, located a few hundred metres away, was a real surprise.  Its incredibly well-presented interactive exhibits outline the history of the township, its once-secret military endeavours and hardship locals faced living on the edge of the Outback.  Garry and I spent more than three hours exploring the town and learning of its extraordinary history.

Woomera had one final highlight for us as we headed out of town for a four-hour drive to Coober Pedy.  As we drove out of town we encountered an Emu running down the highway. It dashed along the highway for 50 metres or so before finally veering off into the tussock.  It was ultimately the only sighting of an Emu in the wild during our entire vacation.

However, the day's greatest highlight was a leisurely stop at Lake Hart. This stunning lake is located about 47km north of Woomera.  It's here that the modern Ghan railway also winds its way along the lakefront making for some spectacular scenery.

The forgotten ones

I learnt today that, Janet Elizabeth Armstrong, passed away recently. Jan, as she was commonly known, was the first wife of Neil Armstrong; whom we all remember as the first person in human history to walk on the moon.

After learning this news I feel compelled to offer a brief tribute. All too often the headline-grabbing achievements of modern heroes, sports stars and titans of industry involve a spouse or family members toiling silently in the background. Their tireless efforts ensure the bills are paid on time, the children are fed and clothed and the many chores of daily life continue unabated.

While Jan may have never walked on the moon, without doubt, her efforts on the home front freed her husband to focus on his deadly and dangerous career. I don't know about you, but I feel Jan deserves her moment in the sun. Here's a link to a tribute published by the Houston Chronicle in June.
 

The last line of defence

Last Saturday Garry and I visited the Nike Missile Defence Museum. I’d stumbled across this unique site by chance during a Google search a few months earlier. I was surprised to learn that until 1974 the San Francisco region has been surrounded by a defensive ring of nuclear missile batteries.

The museum, located on the Marin Headlands, tells the story of hundreds of similar sites that once protected cities throughout the USA from the threat of nuclear-armed Soviet bombers. In recent years, declassified records have revealed that the Soviets had made plans to explode at least one 40 megatons nuclear weapon in front of Alcatraz; just below the surface of San Francisco Bay.

The resulting fallout of contaminated water and debris was designed to render the entire region uninhabitable for more than a century. The strategic value of such an act is clear when you learn that the Bay Area is the only significant sheltered harbour on the US west coast for more than 1000 kilometres.

The Nike-Ajax, and its successor the nuclear-capable Nike-Hercules, were medium range antiaircraft missiles. Guided by a complex system of radars and tracking computers, they had ranges of up to 37 miles (Ajax) and 87 miles (Hercules) and could shoot down planes travelling at two to three times the speed of sound. Nike-Hercules could achieve supersonic speeds within a couple of seconds of launch and reach its target in less than a minute.

We learnt that the Nike system was not only the most expensive missile system ever deployed, it was also the most widespread (300 sites in 30 states) and longest-lived (25 years nationwide). Around the Bay Area alone 12 permanent launch sites and their associated control, housing, and command sites were constructed.

However, after an investment of US$1.16 billion this defensive network was ultimately decommissioned as Inter-Continental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) ICBM missiles superseded the role of long-range bombers. ICBMs could fly at altitudes and speeds beyond which defensive missiles could reach, effectively leaving them without targets to hit. The Nike missile system was declared obsolete by 1974 and the last missiles were taken out of service in 1979.

The Nike Missile Defence Museum was created to preserve a lasting record of this period. It’s the last surviving site of its kind. We were lucky enough to visit on a day when former army veterans were conducting on-site tours. It was fascinating to hear their stories about maintaining the missiles, preparing them for launch and living with the ever-present threat of nuclear Armageddon.  It was also rather terrifying to learn that a 19-year-old Army recruit was ultimately responsible for pushing the button.

Our veteran guides explained that, in the San Francisco area, the Nike antiaircraft defences oeprated at a continual high state of readiness from 1954 and through to the implementation of the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT) in 1974. This state of readiness meant that one or more Nike batteries in the Bay Area were always ready to launch missiles with three minutes of positively identify an incoming Soviet bomber more than 150 miles away.

Our tour of the site took us into a range of facilities that included the ordinance shed where nuclear weapons were installed in each missile, into one of two underground bunkers where six missiles were stored and into the mobile radar tracking and missile firing control centre. However, the highlight of the tour was watching a missile being raised from the underground bunker on a hydraulic lift and then erected into a vertical position for launch. Despite its age, the technology remains impressive!