Crescent Earth, Apollo 4, 1967
Earth from an altitude of 18,000 kilometers, taken by an automatic camera aboard Apollo 4. Antarctica appears at the top of the crescent, with the northwest coast of Africa visible at the bottom. The Command Module contained an automatic 70 mm film camera which captured photographs of almost the entire Earth. For a period of two hours and thirteen minutes as the craft approached and passed its apogee, a total of 755 color images were taken through the Command Pilot's forward-looking window, at altitudes ranging from 7,295 to 9,769 nautical miles (13,510 to 18,092 km). The photographs were not of sufficient resolution to obtain detailed scientific data, but were still of geographic, cartographic, meteorologic, oceanographic, geologic and hydrologic interest. Apollo 4 was the first test flight for the Saturn V, the launch vehicle which was ultimately used by the Apollo program to send the first astronauts to the Moon. Apollo 4 flew without a crew, and was an "all-up test," meaning all rocket stages and spacecraft would be fully functional on the initial flight, a first for NASA. The launch, on November 9, 1967, was the first from the John F. Kennedy Space Center on Merritt Island, Florida. The mission lasted almost nine hours, splashing down in the Pacific Ocean, achieving all mission goals.
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Photo credit: © Photo Researchers / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
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