Task 2
Questions 13-18
Read the article about ‘Earthrise’. For questions 13-18, choose the correct answer
(A, B, C or D). Mark your answer on the answer sheet.
Earthrise
On 24 December 1968, Bill Anders took what is perhaps the most reproduced photograph ever taken: ‘Earthrise’. Taken during the Apollo 8 mission, as he and his fellow crewmen, Jim Lovell and Frank Borman, orbited the Moon, it showed the Earth rising above the horizon of the Moon. For the first time in human history, we could see our planet, a blue and white disc, half in shadow but with its edge sharply defined, hanging in the blackness of space. ‘Earthrise’ has become one of history’s most influential images. It transformed our view of ourselves. It brought home the awareness that the world was a place we all share together.
We can see a world that is ‘whole and round and beautiful and small’, as the poet Archibald MacLeish put it. Indeed, Anders said of the picture that the glittering blue hemisphere ‘reminded him of a Christmas tree ornament’. When you see our Earth surrounded by the infinity of space, it makes you feel very small and unimportant. As Sir David Attenborough said: “I suddenly realized how isolated and lonely we are on Earth.” Certainly, ‘Earthrise’ is a striking reminder of Earth’s vulnerability. There is nothing that will come to save it. It’s up to us.
Interestingly, the Apollo 8 mission schedule did not include taking photos of the Earth but of the Moon. The main purpose of the mission was to orbit the Moon and find potential landing sites for a later mission. But the mission aim was controversial. In 1967, three astronauts had been burned to death during a ground test of an Apollo capsule, and Apollo 8 was originally meant only to check the tracking and communications equipment in low earth orbit. But the CIA thought that the Soviet Union was preparing a manned lunar mission, and the Apollo 8 mission was upgraded.
The outward trip was not without unexpected excitement. As the astronauts settled down for the night, Borman, no longer at the controls, took a sleeping pill. This was a mistake. A couple of hours later, he was struck by a fit of vomiting. This is bad enough on earth but a nightmare in zero gravity, where everything floats around. The astronauts found themselves scrambling about the cabin, trying to capture the mess with paper towels.
During the fourth orbit around the Moon, Borman changed the orientation of the capsule to see the horizon. He looked out of the window and shouted: “Oh my God! Look at that picture over there! Here’s the Earth coming up.” This was followed by startled responses from Anders and Lovell, and a fight to find a camera. Anders got there first. After putting a roll of 70mm colour film into his Hasselblad, he took the Earthrise photograph that was to become an icon.
The mission was a welcome success at the end of a year that had seen the assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, a dramatic worsening of the Vietnam War and the Prague ‘spring’ crushed by Soviet tanks. It marked the point when interest in the space programme changed from what it meant for space to what it meant for Earth. It gave a clear environmental message – this is our fragile home, and we have to take care of it. Seven months later, humans were standing on the Moon. Three years after that, human landings on the moon were over. The US public, who had funded the programme, tired of the Moon and turned to concerns closer to home.
According to the author, 'Earthrise' is important because
For the author, 'Earthrise' makes the Earth look
The initial aim of the mission was
On the first night in space, Borman
When the Earth rose above the Moon, Anders was
According to the author, the mission was important because it