 Today we're going to be using this giant book of images from the NASA archives as our guide across 60 years of space exploration. On the 12th of April 1981, whilst I was out playing in the street as a young boy, my mum called me in to watch the maiden launch of Columbia, the very first space shuttle. After watching that event and of course being a Star Wars fan and having loads of space Lego, it kickstarted a fascination in me with the images from the NASA archives that has stayed with me to this day. On the 29th of August this year 2022, little kids around the world are going to be glued to their tablets watching the launch of the Artemis one and hopefully kickstarting with them a fascination with space. How's it? How's it? One of the joys of photography is its capacity to take us to places and events that we long to go or that we can't visit and of course space fits firmly into this this bracket of images and that's why the images from this Tashen book which is huge by the way it's like five kilograms or was that 10 pounds are so evocative so amazing to look at. The photos in this book remind us of the infinite possibilities of space but also of the the human cost, the human enterprise that gets us there, the technological feats and hurdles that we have had to overcome to enable us to follow our dreams into the cosmos. In addition to being you know into space Lego and Star Wars and the space shuttle missions and all those kind of things I was also a a devotee of Carl Sagan in this Cosmos series it really got me going because he was sharing with me those pictures, those first real pictures of space you know not of this kind of CGI stuff that was around at the time or artist illustrations as evocative of those words but the real images. This was new to me, I was under my first exposure to space and it sparked a curiosity within me, a curiosity to jump into those pictures, to explore them, to imagine myself in different worlds. In addition to the brute power in these photographs where you could feel the earth shaking as these rockets lifted off into the sky of this kind of larger-than-life technological feat that was of course new to me the photographs also bring home the very real human aspect of this that this isn't just a walk in the park you know the Challenger explosion was the first time that it was brought home to me through these images that this was a very dangerous endeavor. Photographs have that capacity to make us remember a specific event in a very clear way and certainly these photographs from the Challenger explosion are burned more into my memory than any of the footage. Another image that places us firmly in my imagination with these photographs of the EVAs, those first extra vehicle activities that were you know man being untethered out there in space on those little jetpacks that obviously to you know to a kid were like oh my god I want one of those who would not want that that was the promise of space right there that was the beginning as far as I thought of you know all that Star Trek stuff of Star was going off into the cosmos everything that Carl Sagan had promised was now about to come true. I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal before this decade is out of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth. That speech by JFK seems so flippant almost on the face of it you know let's just go and do these things well do you know they're hard but you can and when you look at the photographs from the archives from this period you get a sense of the the human story to space the efforts the reality of the undertaking that NASA committed itself to when being faced with this challenge. Had it been all press release images and you know looking like Buzz Lightyear up into the future and stuff I don't think we would get that sense of real struggle real invention that was required by all sorts of people to get to the goal that Kennedy had set. One of the beauties of the images from these archives is that so many of them aren't just dull and emotional records of something but also artistic images that the photographers who were responsible for them have taken the effort to create visually exciting photographs to try different techniques and not just restricted to the to the official photographers for NASA but also astronauts themselves. I find it immensely crazy that in addition to piloting these extremely dangerous technologically complicated and rough and ready spaceships they also had the time to take amazing photographs. Bill Anders and his very famous photograph Earthrise is a prime example of this. This is a photograph taken by a man under extreme stress who has recognized a moment and in that moment has encapsulated all of the earth and everything within it you know to to go back to that Carl Sagan quote the the the blue dot that everything that has ever happened in all of humanity is within that and that's what you get from photographs. This photograph and others of a similar style are credited with kick-starting the awareness about climate change of that we are actually just a small tiny speck. Isn't that the beauty and the power of photography? You know at play these are these and so many other images like this are in these archives in this book it's time to go back and revisit them with fresh eyes about how we can learn from them. There is a problem with these kind of photographs though is that they feel old-fashioned the people within them are from another time they are before my time the photographs many of them are in black and white many of them feature antiquated technology that it is like watching a documentary that it doesn't feel modern doesn't feel contemporary because it wasn't and it feels like all the promise of the Mercury and the Gemini's and the Apollo's and then later the challenges and the space shutters and all these things kind of just stopped. There's a photographer called Dan Winters who creates beautiful photographs not least just of things around the space program and he documented the final flights of the space shuttle as it you know wound down its missions and the images are beautiful but they are also somewhat sad because all that promise of space everything that these images it's in the archives we're feeding into my child's you know my mind and my imagination seem to have kind of stopped that the reality of the modern world is that okay this is we're not doing this anymore but then you get things like Hubble you get the now the James Webb telescope and they are bringing us images from the galaxy from the universe that are rekindling my excitement for space to go back to those places those images that that Carl Sagan started putting into my head saying look this is the infinite possibility of space this is the wonder of everything all those efforts all the man with funny pocket protectors and string ties and and and archaic calculators that started in motion Robert Goddard and his first little rockets this is the world that we can seek to enjoy through the medium of photography because we will never go there ourselves and now we come almost full circle with the Artemis rockets you know starting on our journey back to the moon to to hopefully inspire new children through their photographs the next chapter of all these these images is waiting to be written and I wonder I hope that I will get to see some of these that these these photographs that are contained in this wonderful evocative book will be added to in years to come the next 60 years so it'll be NASA the 120 years of space exploration these photographs encompass everything that I love about the art of photography visual beauty human emotions and being inspired to set our sails as Carl Sagan said and journey Dan went to this photography is absolutely stunning and I know you're gonna love it so click over here and thank you ever so much for