When I was growing up I had a friend who had a collection of NASA photographs and pamphlets.  These were the days of the original “Right Stuff,” and all you had to do to get these items was write to NASA, and they would send them to you for free.  I mention this, because yesterday I read on CNN that there was an auction at Bloomsbury Auctions in London on February 26 of vintage NASA memorabilia; so my mind came naturally back to my friend, whose name, btw, I have quite forgotten.  Such are the tricks and vagaries of of time.

The photographs from this sale brought back a lot of memories, conjuring up the same excitement as when I first saw them forty or fifty years ago.  But what really struck me were the ones that I had not seen.  Let me mention in particular the photograph of Buzz Aldrin taken on the Gemini 12 mission.  This image may well be the first selfie taken in space.    And then I contemplated in amazement a photograph of the Earth taken from a V2 rocket on October 24, 1946.  This was the first photograph taken of from space.  And how is space defined.  Glad you asked, space begins at the so-called Karmin line, which lies 100 km or 62.5 miles above the Earth.

There is, I believe, an important lesson here.  Look at these photographs and notice how many feature the Earth as either subject or background.  As human inhabitants we are defined by our planet.  We are of it, and as hard as we may try to leave it, we must ever remain nostalgic for it.