Recently the short documentary Earthrise was posted on Youtube.  It’s an exploration of the emotional impact on the first humans to ever see their—our—lovely world in the rear view mirror.

The crew of Apollo 8 journeyed to the far side of the moon and back.  They became the first in human history to go far enough from the good Earth to see it dwindle into a blue marble.  Curiously, there had been no advance recognition of the emotional impact of seeing what may be the most hospitable place in all of Creation from a distance,.

The Apollo 8 mission is today remembered for the iconic photo of a crescent Earth rising above the lunar horizon.  In photographic terms, however, what was to be one of the most reproduced images in all of humankind’s history was a “grab shot”:  William Anders had been recording lunar craters on black and white film when suddenly  Earth rose above the bleak horizon.  He asked for a roll of color film—tossed to him, in zero gee—and caught the image in the nick of time, because nobody who’d planned the mission had anticipated the wonder of this.

In Anders words, “We came all this way to explore the Moon, and the most important thing is that we discovered the Earth.”

Mission Commander Frank Borman’s take was equally poignant:  rather than astronauts, he said, we “should have sent poets.”   Poets, as well as visual artists and writers can with capture how the wonder of the universe intersects the human spirit.

The wonder of Creation, the incomparable value of our home planet, and what it means to be human:  these are some of the reasons I write science fiction.  Maybe these are some of reasons you read science fiction, too.