Raymond J. de Souza: The Artemis mission is humbling for humanity

The 'Earthrise' photo taken on Christmas Eve 1968. Photo by Handout/NASA/AFP via Getty Images

Article content

The lunar orbit of Artemis II reminded us of the “Earthrise” photograph from the Apollo 8 mission in December 1968. Man had never seen the Earth before as a whole, a beautiful blue marble against the ethereal vast blackness of space. Man had forever looked up at the moon. He had never before looked down upon the Earth.

Article content

While Apollo 8 was followed some seven months later by the Apollo 11 moon landing in July 1969, the photo likely had a greater impact than the actual moon walk. There was now an image to accompany the ingrained intuition that the world was a singular, shared entity; that despite perennial rivalries between peoples and tribes and nations, we share common passage upon this small, lonely cosmic vessel.

Article content

Article content

Article content

For travellers in the 1980s and ’90s, the trusty “Lonely Planet” series was required reading for pre-internet planning. There was not a tourist site in the world in which someone was not fishing the “Lonely Planet” guide out of a backpack. The “Lonely Planet” was founded in 1973. Would the title have resonated so widely without the Earthrise shot of 1968?

Article content

Article content

It was not recreational travel upon which the suspended blue bauble had the greatest impact, but ecology. A new consciousness emerged, not that this mountain or canyon or river or lake was precious, but that the entire planet was beautiful and fragile and ought to be cared for. And if Earth was beautiful from a distance, ought not its beauty be cared for up close? See cosmically, care locally.

Article content

The Earth is not really fragile. It has survived much over billions of years, and we know that even in a matter of decades the grasses and bushes and forests can reclaim land previously cleared and cultivated. Yet that small blue sphere against an immense emptiness seemed so tiny, so vulnerable, so fragile. Therefore the only beings capable of seeing it in that way had a special duty of care.

Article content

Article content

The ecological movement was galvanized in December 1968, but the injunction to care for creation is much older.

Article content

Article content

The Apollo 8 astronauts made a broadcast from lunar orbit on Christmas Eve 1968. NASA permitted the astronauts on board to choose what they would say. Fully one fourth of all humanity was able to listen. They chose to read from the first 10 verses of Genesis: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”

Article content

They didn’t read from Genesis 2:15, that the Lord God placed man “in the garden to till and keep it.” That’s the biblical basis for stewardship, that man is to care for creation, to make it fruitful, to cultivate its resources, but not to destroy it. Economists speak of creation as a common good, meaning one subject to the “tragedy of the commons” — land that everyone exploits but no one has the responsibility or incentive to preserve and care for.

Article content

The ancient moral wisdom is that which is held in common is an invitation to share, to collaborate, to co-operate, to care. The Earthrise photograph was the powerful image that complemented the words. As every teacher and newspaper editor knows, a picture is worth 1,000 words — even if those words are from sacred scripture.