Earth Restored – 50 restored images of earth released • Hacker News Board

It's hard to believe that it's been over 50 years since humans have been outside of low earth orbit. It's like we sprinted forward so fast, going from horse drawn carriage to space flight in a generation, only to get frightened and recede back from the highest point, never to go back.

Granted there has been an enormous amount of innovation in the last 50 years, but by some accounts we've been going backwards. Humans are no longer capable of mach 3 flight, or making Roman concrete.

I think we assume that technology will keep progressing. We assume Moore's law will continue into the future and we forget that there are people behind the progress. The technology that produced those pictures are gone, we might be able to take ones like them again, but never with the same rockets and never with the same photo-chemical processes. Progress is fragile, not inevitable and everything we have can be lost in a generation just as easily as it was made.

Re: Earth Restored – 50 restored images of earth released

#7

Post by flohofwoe » Sat, Apr 24, 2021, 9:37 AM UTC

vegetablepotpie wrote: post #6

It's hard to believe that it's been over 50 years since humans have been outside of low earth orbit. It's like we sprinted forward so fast, going from horse drawn carriage to space flight in a generation, only to get frightened and recede back from the highest point, never to go back. Granted there has been an enormous amount of innovation in the last 50 years, but by some accounts we've been going backwards. Humans…

You really need to take the power and "reality distortion effect" of propaganda during the Cold War into account.

Massive projects were started without much rational sense just to beat the other side in an imaginary race (and a very concrete military race). What's the point of landing a man on the moon, if the technology to do so was so rushed and held together by duct tape that it wasn't useful for anything else? What's the point of the Space Shuttle if launches were more expensive than disposable rockets? What's the point of the Buran, if the Soviets didn't feel like they need an answer to the space shuttle "just in case", even though they couldn't see any point in the shuttle design (except as a nuke carrier)?

Etc... etc... the list goes on for both sides. I rather have slow and steady progress that actually makes economical and scientific sense in the long run.

PS: I thought the secret of Roman concrete had been cracked long ago (a certain type of volcanic ash)? But it's just not economical to produce large quantities since modern sky scrapers are not expected to "survive" for thousands of years anyway (and AFAIK the Romans didn't know much about the special properties of their concrete either, it more or less was a "happy little accident").

Re: Earth Restored – 50 restored images of earth released

#8

Post by ascar » Sat, Apr 24, 2021, 9:39 AM UTC

> "I was guided throughout by two principles:

- be true to the photographs

- be true to the Earth

[...]

The main changes I made were:

[...]

- adjusting the black point until the background of space appears truly black"

These shots are beautiful, but is making the background completely black really doing reality justice? In our unfortunately light polluted night sky we can barely see the stars, but shouldn't the astronauts see the earth within a shimmer of billion stars? Or is the source material not showing stars due to a lack of exposure?

Re: Earth Restored – 50 restored images of earth released

#9

Post by tubabyte » Sat, Apr 24, 2021, 9:41 AM UTC

> Collins, who remained in orbit on the Command Module, is behind the lens. Every other human is in front of it.

This caption is so powerful.

Re: Earth Restored – 50 restored images of earth released

#10

Post by runj__ » Sat, Apr 24, 2021, 9:43 AM UTC

I cried a little at the the shot of the lander and earth from the command module, the thought of every single other human in the same frame is just too much.