Figure 1: NASA Photo AS17–148–22727, 1972. “View of the Earth seen by the Apollo 17 crew traveling toward the moon.” (Courtesy NASA and NSSDC Photo Gallery.)
The photo was taken by the astronauts aboard Apollo’s final flight on December 7, 1972.8 It was released by NASA on December 23, 1972 and was published on the front page of newspapers across the country over the Christmas weekend (Hartwell). The photo decenters Europe and privileges the Southern Hemisphere, thus working against the historically ethnocentric view of the globe that Monmonier has often critiqued (How to Lie). As geographer Denis Cosgrove has described in his study of photo 22727, the image depicts a “perfectly circular earth within a square frame [. . .]. The edges of the floating globe seem to dissolve into the surrounding black, an impression produced by the earth’s atmosphere” (Apollo’s Eye 260). The photo is predominantly composed of brown, white, and blue tones, which serve to “clearly define the landmasses of Africa and the Arabian peninsula, the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans, and the island continent of Antarctica” (260). The image functions as a complex artifact of visual rhetoric. Recognized by many as a widely reproduced, iconic photo, it is also a map of the whole earth and thus an object of cartographic practice. Further, the social and political contexts in which the image was situated when it was first introduced to the public in 1972 can help us understand the power and knowledge dynamics at work in its circulation and thus its rhetorical power as both iconic image and cartographic representation.
The Image as Both Iconic Photo and Cartographic Representation
Photo 22727 fits within the baseline criteria articulated by Hariman and Lucaites for what counts as an iconic image. Reproduced throughout the years in various forms of print and electronic media, the photo of the whole earth is “widely recognized and remembered,” associated with the “historically significant” final flight of Apollo 17, and may be read as “activat[ing] strong emotional identification or response” in its audience (Hariman and Lucaites 27). Introduced during a period of time in which the environmental movement of the United States was just beginning to emerge, the image has become associated with the idea of environmentalism, has been appropriated by environmental groups, and has arguably shaped perceptions of how the earth is imagined within public discourse. Cosgrove helps us understand how the photo works rhetorically both as an iconic image and as a cartographic representation. On the one hand, he says, photo 22727 may be understood primarily as an iconic photo, for “the frequency with which photo 22727 is reproduced in reverse or inverted suggests that its status is iconic rather than cartographic. While it is instantly recognized as an image of the earth, few register its precise geographical contents. Most respond primarily to its cosmographic and elemental qualities” (Apollo’s Eye 261). On the other hand, Cosgrove seems to implicitly understand the image as both iconic photo and object of cartographic practice when he notes that “the image’s geographical, compositional, and tonal qualities give it unusually strong imaginative appeal, aesthetic balance, and formal harmony” (260, emphasis added). Moreover, if we consider Cosgrove’s definition of the practice of mapping, we can see that an iconic, geographic image such as photo 22727 indeed accomplishes cultural work that influences our understanding of the world and shapes the geographic imagination: “to map is in one way or another to take the measure of a world [. . .] in such a way that it may be communicated between people, places or times. The measure of mapping is not restricted to the mathematical; it may equally be spiritual, political or moral” (Cosgrove, “Mapping Meaning” 2). Thus, in moving away from traditional notions of cartography as positing neutral, correct, relational models of the terrain, we can begin to understand how images of the earth like photo 22727 function as mappings that cultivate critical thought or reflection among its viewers. Likewise, Cosgrove understands mapping as a knowledge-making practice that encourages us to step outside of our traditionally held assumptions in order arrive at new imaginings of our world: “Acts of mapping are creative, sometimes anxious, moments of coming to knowledge of the world, and the map is both the spatial embodiment of knowledge and a stimulus to further cognitive engagements” (Cosgrove, “Mapping Meaning” 1). Indeed, interpretations of photo 22727 enable cognitive engagement with the idea of how we understand our world.
Ways of Seeing Photo 22727
Photo 22727 dramatically displays Earth as a singular entity, surreal and lacking the context of broader surroundings; it presents the viewer with the “whole, unshadowed globe floating in the blackness of space and given NASA number AS17–22727” (Cosgrove 257). From the perspective of the photo as a cartographic, rhetorical artifact, we might consider the power of its small scale, which seemingly marks a territory encompassing “the whole of creation”: “In scale, mapping may trace a line or delimit and limn a territory of any length or size, from the whole of creation to its tiniest fragments; notions of shape and area are themselves in some respects a product of mapping processes” (Cosgrove, “Mapping Meaning” 2). The apparent vastness of the map’s territory, its small scale, and its perfect circularity contribute to its feeling of disembodiment, and may initially spark interpretations along the register of what Cosgrove terms the “one-world discourse” (Apollo’s Eye 263). That is, Cosgrove notes that interpretations of photo 22727 have generally been framed by two “related discourses”: what he terms the “one-world” discourse on the one hand and the “whole-earth” discourse on the other (262–263). The one-world discourse, he says, is concerned with ideas of communication and interconnectedness, but focuses more on the “global surface [. . .]. It is a universalist, progressive, and mobile discourse [. . .]. Consistently associated with technological advance, it yields an implicitly imperial spatiality, connecting the ends of the earth to privileged hubs and centers of control” (263). In contrast to this more imperialistic, disembodied view, the viewer may also come to understand the image as representing “the globe’s organic unity” and “rootedness,” in accord with what he terms the “whole-earth” discourse, which “emphasizes the fragility and vulnerability of a corporeal earth and responsibility for its care. It can generate apocalyptic anxiety about the end of life on this planet or warm sentiments of association, community, and attachment” (262–263). To fully oppose the one-earth discourse to the whole-earth discourse, however, is to fail to recognize the middle-ground between the two, and the ways in which each fosters different representations of connectivity. Moreover, appropriations of images of the earth contain variations that may be read in terms of both the one-world discourse (as more totalizing and universalizing, signifying networked communication and globalization) and the whole-earth discourse (as more inclusive and rooted, signifying local knowledge and individual accountability).9
While photo 22727 has come to be associated with both discourses, its initial reception was more readily associated with the social contexts of the emerging environmental movement of the United States in the 1970s. Its continued appropriation by environmental groups affords it a strong association with environmentalism even today. As Cosgrove describes, the photo’s “apparent absence of cultural signifiers has made it a favored icon for environmental and human-rights campaigners and those challenging Western humanism’s long-held assumption of superiority in a hierarchy of life” (Apollo’s Eye 261):
[T]he image [. . .] radically destabilizes the cultural part of the conventional meaning of Earth. [. . .] [I]t is no longer regarded as primarily the ‘home of Man.’ Earth is viewed as having an intrinsic life, even its own intelligence as a homeostatic system, and all of its different species accorded dignity equal to that of humans. Humanity is decentered, and by regarding humans as merely one among a multitude of species the cultural variety which is a distinctive feature of our species is suppressed. (Cosgrove, “New World Orders” 128–129)
The image may then invoke in the viewer a sense of responsibility and kinship as opposed to distance or disembodiment. Again, the growing discourses of environmental conservation in the United States in the early 1970s contributed to such interpretations of the photo.
Contextualizations and Appropriations of Photo 22727
The publication of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring in 1962 is widely understood as one of the primary catalysts for contemporary environmentalism in the United States. Subsequently, in the decades following publication of Silent Spring, the public witnessed the steadily growing momentum of the environmental movement. While photo