"Space Photographer" Takes Action, Leaving More Than Just Beauty

Astronauts from home and abroad have taken many photographs while in orbit, some of which are stunningly beautiful and have extraordinary commemorative significance.

1. The first walk despite many dangers (the first spacewalk in NASA history)

On March 18, 1965, Alexei Leonov (left) left the space capsule on the Voskhod-2 spacecraft for 12 minutes and 9 seconds; on June 3 of the same year, Edward White (right) became the first American to walk in space, floating 160 kilometers above the earth. This is the first photo taken by another astronaut in space of his companion floating in space.

On June 3, 1965, NASA astronaut Ed White became the first American citizen to perform a spacewalk, a feat that came just three months after Leonov's daring spacewalk. The EVA (also known as an EVA) conducted on the Gemini 4 mission began over the Pacific Ocean near Hawaii and lasted 23 minutes. Ed White used a handheld oxygen jet (the instrument he is shown holding in the photo below) to push himself out of the capsule and move through space.

An emergency oxygen bag was placed on his chest, and a 25-foot (7.6-meter) umbilical cord and tether wrapped in gold ribbon secured him to the craft.

"Initially, White used a handheld blowtorch to propel himself to the end of an 8-meter (26-foot) cable and returned to the spacecraft three times. After the first three minutes, the fuel ran out and White twisted his body around, pulling on the cable to operate."

White tried his luck with the "zip gun" (as astronauts call oxygen jets), but luckily it did not harm him.The Gemini 4 spacewalk, while not as dramatic as Leonov's, was not without its share of problems, including poor communications during the EVA and a stubborn hatch that was difficult to open and close.

“When we went to close the hatch, it wouldn’t shut and it wouldn’t lock,” explained Ed White’s Gemini 4 crewmate, James McDivitt, in a 1999 interview. “So, in the dark, I was trying to fiddle with the side where I couldn’t see anything, trying to put my glove into this little slot and push the gears together. And finally, we got it done and it locked.” If McDivitt hadn’t closed the hatch, both astronauts would have surely died during re-entry.

2. Heavenly Exploration or Hellish Training (The First Untethered Spacewalk in Human History)

In February 1984, Bruce McCandless II performed the first untethered spacewalk using an MMU jetpack.

On February 7, 1984, two astronauts from the Challenger space shuttle, McCandless and Stewart, walked in space one after another. They walked out of the Challenger and completed the first untethered spacewalk by humans.

McCandless was the first to go out. He left the cargo hold with his jetpack on his back. Nitrogen gushing out of the backpack propelled him 320 feet out of the cabin. He was suspended in the dark space like a satellite. After McCandless spent 90 minutes in space, he returned to the cargo hold. He handed the backpack to another astronaut, Stewart.

When Stewart left the spacecraft, he had a safety belt on his wrist for a short time, but he quickly unfastened it and began to leave the space shuttle. He entered the space shuttle 92 meters away and returned to the cabin 65 minutes later.

The two astronauts and the shuttle were hurtling along at about 17,400 miles per hour (28,000 kilometers per hour), but it didn't feel that fast in space.

During this spacewalk, the astronauts used jetpacks, which enabled them to recover and repair satellites in flight without wearing safety belts. The astronauts walked in space with the pale blue Earth behind them. The pictures of the thrilling and beautiful scene attracted countless people on Earth to exclaim and admire.

While everyone was marveling at the space shuttle astronauts' spacewalk, astronaut Bob Stewart was in pain. Was this the "heavenly exploration" that people longed for, or the "hellish suffering"?

Spacewalks in Earth orbit are arduous, requiring astronauts to work in a deadly vacuum for six hours in stiff, bulky spacesuits. They are also physically and mentally challenging, and that's assuming everything goes well. When astronauts Bob Stewart and Bruce McCandless left the space shuttle Challenger on February 7, 1984, to test the "jet pack" of NASA's Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU) during the STS-41B mission, they had no idea how unlucky spacewalks would be...

To their surprise, trouble arose when they opened the hatch and left the shuttle. As the air was discharged from the shuttle's airlock, Stewart followed standard operating procedures and yawned to equalize the pressure between his middle ear and the atmosphere of the space suit, where the pressure averaged 1.95 kilograms per square inch. However, this simple action caused the chin strap that secured the communication tool to his chin to break.

Stewart recalled that the chin pad on the chin strap was floating in front of his eyes... This could be the worst situation. I pursed my lips and blew hard. Then the chin strap bounced between my nose and the surface of the helmet. When the chin strap slid over my mouth, I tried to catch it with my tongue and then stuff it into the neck ring of the helmet to prevent it from blocking my vision.

As Stewart tried to catch the chin strap with his tongue, he did not realize that his space helmet was tilted upwards. Normally, the space helmet is very comfortable to wear, but when this happened, the previously fixed microphone and headphones also shifted in position. He said: "This is my first time walking in space. I felt pressure on my earlobes. When I raised my head, the microphone had deviated to the position of my nose. I used my head to hit the back pad of my head to prevent the communication device from falling off."

He had a bigger concern at that time. He didn't want the ground control center to know about this problem because they might cancel the spacewalk. When the space shuttle Challenger lost control of the ground control center, Stewart told his astronaut fellow astronaut McCandless and the space shuttle commander Vance Brand what happened. We talked about it, and finally Stewart decided to continue the spacewalk. Brand said, "Okay, let's go ahead!" When Stewart and McCandless walked out of the airlock, Stewart's head was stuck on the back of the head pad to prevent the communication device he was wearing from falling off.

Stewart knew full well that walking in space with the back of his head pressed against an astronaut helmet was not a fun experience, but as a U.S. Army test pilot and a veteran of hundreds of helicopter gunship missions in Vietnam, Stewart thought he could get through it!

When McCandless was doing his first untethered spacewalk in his manned maneuvering unit, Stewart began working in the payload bay. He said, "I was about to start my spacewalk and I found that I couldn't get my feet into the space rings. I could get my toes into the rings, but when my heels were locked I couldn't turn them. I couldn't see the details, but the outer layer of the boot had slipped over the heel pin, which meant I had to use my left hand to hold myself in place, and my left hand was holding half of the tool. I had to apply all the torque forces, not only through my arms, but also through my feet. It was unbearable pain, and my arms were cramping..." When asked about his level of frustration at the time, Stewart said, "Oh my God, if the limit of frustration was 10, my frustration level was 9.5 at the time!"

At the same time, the staff of the ground control center was talking on the radio with the "free-flying" McCandless. He was describing the spectacular space scene he saw high above the space capsule. Then the ground control center turned to another space partner, Stewart, and called on the radio: "McCandless, we're done talking to you, Stuart, are you okay?" At this time, Stewart's voice-controlled microphone had shifted to the position of his eyeballs, so Stewart shouted at the top of his lungs: "Oh, I'm fine, let's talk again later!" In fact, what Stewart really thought at the time was that there was something wrong with the space suit, and I was dealing with it, so please don't contact me for the time being.

The ground control center staff did not understand Stewart's hint. While breathing dry and pure oxygen in the helmet, Stewart's throat was almost dry, but he still did not dare to move his chin to drink water using the straw on the neck ring. He said: "If I move my head to drink water, I may lose the communication carrier, after all, the chin strap that fixes the communication tool is disconnected."

McCandless continued his magic carpet ride. When he floated in space to 100 meters above the Challenger space shuttle, Stewart faced a new problem. The sublimator in his space flight backpack cooled the circulating water in the cooling suit pipes close to his skin. The pipes were blocked by ice water. According to the recommendations of the mission memorandum, the temperature of the space suit needs to be adjusted to the lowest when this happens. He explained that this is equivalent to placing the maximum amount of ice water around the human body, so as to use the body heat to melt the ice in the sublimator, but when I adjust the temperature of the space suit to the lowest, it is like jumping into the Arctic Ocean. I have no way to make the space suit warm up quickly.

At this point, since there wasn't much advice in the mission memo, Stewart thought he could clear the ice blockage by turning off the suit's fans and pumps, cutting off the water flow, and eventually allowing the ice to sublime. However, when the suit's fans were turned off, the carbon dioxide content in the helmet rose rapidly. When Stewart felt his breathing getting deeper, he turned the fans back on. During the rest of the spacewalk, he experienced six such freezing events, the last of which was discovered when he returned to the airlock.

Stewart said lightly: "Admittedly, it was a very frustrating extravehicular activity." Two days later, the Challenger astronauts needed to perform another spacewalk. This time, Stewart would drive the manned space mobility unit himself. When he put on the protective suit, he tied the head communication tools to the helmet with medical tape for better control, but he still couldn't use the anklets to fix his feet.

Stewart said that flying a manned space maneuvering device is a test pilot's dream. I have achieved the highest level of control of the space jet pack. This is a space flight device that I highly approve of. The only way for astronauts to control flight more easily is to connect it to their brains. In this way, as long as the astronauts consciously perform a certain action, the space jet pack can realize it. It is a delightful machine...

Stewart recalled the real feeling of spacewalking in an interview with reporters. He said: "When I looked at the orbiter and the earth, I wondered: What would it feel like to be the only person in the universe? So I turned the space manned maneuvering unit to a place where I couldn't see the earth, the moon or the sun. Here I could only see the darkness of space. I only lasted about 15 seconds. Then I thought: OK, let's look back and make sure everything is still there. This is an interesting feeling I have never experienced before."

Although this was the worst spacewalk ever experienced by the space shuttle astronauts, this experience is the most valuable life experience for the astronauts.

3. The first moon landing was full of doubts and was difficult to distinguish between true and false

In 1968, the astronauts who stayed in the Apollo spacecraft took a photo of the lunar module landing. The Complete Earth Catalog once commented on this photo: "This famous photo taken by Apollo 8 showing the Earth's rise from the moon perfectly illustrates the beauty and rarity of our planet (the dry moon and the barren space cannot compare with it), and it also began to change human consciousness."

On July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first humans to walk on the moon.

Buzz Aldrin standing on the moon (left): The photo was taken in 1969, and the astronaut in the photo is Buzz Aldrin. This is the most perfect photo showing the first time humans have entered another celestial body. The figure in Aldrin's mask is the famous Neil Armstrong. Since its release, this photo of Aldrin has become popular all over the world, and copies of it can be seen all over the world. Interestingly, the bent arm posture he posed when taking the photo has become the object of imitation for future astronauts. As for why he did this, I am afraid only they themselves know.

Human footprints on the moon: The footprints were taken by Aldrin on the moon in 1969. The moonwalk was an important part of the Apollo 11 mission as a way for scientists to study the properties of the lunar soil. This classic photo can serve as a major piece of evidence to prove that humans have landed on the moon.

Photo: Aldrin planted the American flag on the moon and saluted. The photo was taken by Armstrong. This is a photo that is often used by those who are believed to have faked the Apollo 11 moon landing. Conspiracy theorists believe that the moon is a vacuum environment and the American flag cannot "fly". In fact, this is a misunderstanding, because this flag is a special "Γ"-shaped bracket that is always in an unfolded state. The undulations on the surface of the flag are not caused by the wind, but by the inertia of the flag when it is moved. At the same time, there is a lack of air resistance on the moon, and the undulating movement caused by inertia will last for a long time, creating the illusion of "flying in the wind".

Picture: A placard on the spiral ladder of the lunar module, which will be left on the surface of the moon forever, reads, "This is the first time that humans set foot on the surface of the moon in July 1969. We come here for peace on behalf of all mankind."

The authenticity of the Apollo moon landing has always been a focus of debate. Many people believe that the so-called moon landing footage of American astronauts was actually shot in a studio and is an outright fake. Especially now that the first launch of the SLS rocket that will return to the moon has been repeatedly postponed, and the United States has tried its best but cannot even take off, it has become even more suspicious. More than 50 years ago, there were six successful moon landings, and each moon landing was a success. How come it is not possible today in the 2020s when technology is so advanced?

We say that everything should be based on evidence. For more than 50 years since the Apollo moon landing, scientists and mainstream voices from various countries, especially the Soviet Union, the Russian government and the KGB, the rivals of the United States, have never doubted it because there is definite evidence. Our Chang'e 2, Japan's "Moon Goddess", and even the orbiter of India's "Chandrayaan-2" have all photographed the Apollo lunar module. All this is thanks to the U.S. Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter LRO launched on June 18, 2009. It is equipped with a LROC Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera, which consists of a pair of narrow-angle cameras (NAC) and a wide-angle camera (WAC), with a maximum resolution of 0.5 meters. During the mission, LRO flew over the landing areas of Apollo 11, 12, 14, 15, 16 and 17 several times, not only photographing the landing platforms of the lunar module and their shadows, but also photographing the ruts of the lunar rover and the footprints left by the astronauts. Another piece of evidence is that Apollo 15, 16, and 17 all took lunar rovers up to the moon, and a large number of tire tracks can be seen. However, Apollo 11, 12, and 14 did not take lunar rovers up to the moon, so why are there a large number of "tire tracks" in the pictures? They are the series of footprints left by astronauts walking on the moon. Seeing this, some people are definitely dissatisfied. The American orbiter took the photos of the Apollo landing traces, acting as both a referee and an athlete, which is not credible. The Apollo 12 landing area photographed by India's "Chandrayaan-2" also has a series of footprints. Except for the lower resolution and the shallower footprints, it is basically the same as the picture taken by the American LRO.

Well, since the Apollo moon landing is true, there is a flaw that cannot be avoided, that is, why is the United States trying so hard to return to the moon today, and even the first flight of the SLS rocket has to be postponed again and again? First of all, the original time for the United States to return to the moon was 2028, but it was artificially advanced to 2024 due to political needs, so many new systems are not yet mature, which is a kind of forcing things to grow. Secondly, returning to the moon today is actually much more complicated than the Apollo moon landing. The entire "Artemis" plan not only includes sending American astronauts to the moon again, but also establishing a permanent base on the moon. In other words, this time it is no longer a punch-in-style moon landing, so the entire moon landing system has more things to consider. Apollo was just a moon landing, and now it is to establish a lunar base.

4. The King of Cosmic Memes, Inspired by Poetry, and the Most Powerful Photoshoot on Earth

Astronaut Yang Liwei photographed Earth during the Shenzhou V mission in October 2003. This was the first time a Chinese person had been in space.

In October 2003, astronaut Yang Liwei took a photo of the Earth and the Moon while orbiting the Earth on the Shenzhou V manned spacecraft. It was a touch of blue against the backdrop of the quiet space.

On October 15, 2003, the Shenzhou V manned spacecraft was launched into space, and Yang Liwei became my country's first astronaut to enter space.

On September 27, 2008, the second step of the first phase of the manned space program, the astronauts took a small step, but the Chinese nation took a big step. Shenzhou VII astronaut Zhai Zhigang was performing an EVA and displaying the five-star red flag. Before this EVA, there were many dangers. Zhai Zhigang could not open the hatch door that he should have opened by hand. Liu Boming found an auxiliary tool. After Zhai Zhigang took it, he pried the hatch door hard, causing a crack. Then the airflow flowed out instantly, balancing the pressure, and the hatch door finally opened. When everyone just breathed a sigh of relief, the alarm suddenly sounded again. Shenzhou VII reported that the instrument showed that the orbital module was on fire. At this time, Zhai Zhigang also made a quick judgment. They chose the honor of the motherland. With the cooperation of Liu Boming and Jing Haipeng, they completed the first spacewalk, making my country the third country to independently master the key technology of space EVA.

As the "King of Universe", Zhai Zhigang

This is how I describe my first EVA walk.

“When you open it, the sky is full of blue!

I was very happy at that time, the sky was so blue...

Then I lowered my head and thought, something is wrong

Outer space is not blue, outer space is black

It’s so dark that you can’t see anything!”

"Why is it blue?

At first glance, this is Earth..."

On July 4, 2021, astronauts Liu Boming and Yang Hongbo, wearing China's independently developed new generation of "Feitian" extravehicular space suits, successfully exited the Tianhe core module node module. After exiting the cabin, Liu Boming witnessed the environment outside the cabin for the first time and couldn't help blurting out: "It's dark outside." Then Liu Boming jumped into the vast universe. The panoramic camera captured the whole process, and Liu Boming exclaimed: "Wow, it's so beautiful outside!".

On August 20, 2021, astronauts Nie Haisheng and Liu Boming successfully exited the spacecraft and took photos of each other in space, leaving behind photos worth collecting.

Find the best shooting angle

"01, could you please look up for a moment?"

Heaven and Earth Synergy

Find the best shooting angle for Nie Haisheng

After finishing work outside the cabin, I was inspired to write poetry

Liu Boming also shared his thoughts on leaving the cabin

"Walking in space does not age

China's Space Relay Race

Ground staff responded

"Shenzhou XII, a very good job

Thumbs up for you guys! "

As every villager living in the global village, you and I are on the earth, so we are also in the photos!