The mystery of the image of an astronaut cleaned by Rudesind

Ryan Dunn · 02 Jul 2010, 18:28 · from 2010-July.txt.gz

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From: ryan at liftingfaces.com (Ryan Dunn)
Date: Fri, 2 Jul 2010 14:28:26 -0400
Subject: (urth) The mystery of the image of an astronaut cleaned by
	Rudesind
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Message-ID: <4FB01C4A-252A-44E0-85C5-D728E5BF3547 at liftingfaces.com>

I'm curious about the release dates of the ones I've found. I've posted a screengrab with my captions on them here:

www.liftingfaces.com/uploads/moonman_sources.jpg

Things to note:

- a strangely stiff banner (i found an image with the flag threaded with a rod along the top)
- the deathly desert is reflected in his visor and nothing more, you would see stuff (cameraman) in a real photo
- there are images of astronauts with earthrise behind them, but it's an easy enough composite, and symbolic

...ryan


On Jul 2, 2010, at 2:09 PM, Dave Lebling wrote:

> He's told us some of his main sources for obscure words, such as "Mrs. Byrne's Dictionary" and books on the Byzantine and Roman Empires. I don't think he needed to spend much time with a microfiche reader, if any.
> 
> I also think you overestimate the availability of NASA Apollo prints. Some were only released in the last few years, for example.
> 
> But at least we are in violent agreement...
> 
> -- Dave
> 
> On Fri, Jul 2, 2010 at 1:56 PM, Ryan Dunn <ryan at liftingfaces.com> wrote:
> 
> On Jul 2, 2010, at 1:22 PM, Dave Lebling wrote:
> 
> > I'm really fairly amazed at the level of nit-pickery over this question. Let us cast our minds back to the thrilling days of yesteryear (the late 70s), when Wolfe wrote SotT. There was no internet on which you could look up all the thousands of then-unreleased Apollo program pictures, there were a few places you could find pictures in hardcopy (Life -- already moribund, National Geographic, a few coffee table books, etc.). As an SF fan, I'm sure he had resources such as the F&SF cover -- or not, he may not be a pack rat.
> >
> > It seems quite obvious that the description he wrote is based on his memories of various photos and paintings he had actually seen, but he very likely wasn't staring at an actual photo when he wrote the words. Even if he was, who's to say he might not have taken auctorial liberties with what he saw?
> >
> > I know that after many re-readings of SotT, my minds-eye image of the "canonical" Apollo photograph is now the (non-existent) one Wolfe described.
> >
> > -- David Lebling, aka vizcacha
> 
> 
> David,
> 
> Wolfe also built an entire SF series with hundreds of extinct words which he found through diligent research. I wouldn't put hours spent at the microfiche table past him, and those NASA photos would have been released I'm almost certain. Hell, most of the images currently found on Google are from prints from the 60's and 70's, some of them autographed.
> 
> However, I'm of the same mind as you, that he cobbled together the perfect composition from a few iconic images. I think the image in my head in that pinakotheken, is a wide shot of an astronaut standing on Earth's surface with a flag in his hand and an Earth rising over his shoulder. You can't see a staff in his hand without it being wide enough, etc.
> 
> ...ryan
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