To see Earth and Moon in a single glance
An interview with Apollo 15 Astronaut Al Worden, on the 45th anniversary of his epic voyage to the Moon.
“I curved around the moon to where no sunlight or Earthshine could reach me. The moon was a deep, solid circle of blackness, and I could only tell where it began by where the stars cut off. In the dark and quiet, I felt like a bird of the night, silently gliding and falling around the moon, never touching. I turned the cabin lights off. There was no end to the stars.
I could see tens, perhaps hundreds of times more stars than the clearest, darkest night on Earth. With no atmosphere to blur their light, I could see them all to the limits of my eyesight. There were so many, I could no longer find constellations. My vision was filled with a blaze of starlight.
Unlike some other astronauts who had time only for hurried glances, I had many hours, spread over many days, to look at this awe-inspiring view and think about what it meant. There was more to the universe than I had ever imagined.”
-Al Worden, Falling to Earth
