Kevin Kelley
Conceived and edited by Kevin W. Kelley, and a project of the Association of Space Explorers, The Home Planet will be co-published by Addison-Wesley of Boston and Mir of Moscow—a historic first—this September.
The book, with a foreword by Jacques-Yves Cousteau, is the most extensive collection of photographs of Earth from space ever assembled. The 150 full-color photos, most of them unpublished, were selected by Kelley from the entire NASA and Soviet archives. Kelley chose images that capture the sheer awesome impact of Earth from space—from overviews of deserts, jungles, ice caps, volcanoes and weather patterns, to an enormous cloud-covered sphere just outside the spaceship's porthole, to a tiny blue-white marble hanging in the inky blackness, the view from the moon. He added a narrative of quotes from astronauts and cosmonauts from 18 countries, most written especially for the project. He got others from news accounts, books, air-to-ground transmissions and diaries. The comments are personal, poetic, spiritual, sometimes funny.
The first printing of 360,000 copies will be released simultaneously in nine countries: the USSR, the United Kingdom, Japan, France, Italy, Spain, Sweden, the Netherlands and the United States; quotes will be in the language of the book edition and the native language of the space explorer, including Arabic, Bulgarian, Chinese, Czech, Dutch, English, French, German, Hindi, Hungarian, Mongolian, Polish, Romanian, Russian, Spanish and Vietnamese.
"The book clearly conveys the vision of oneness and the uniqueness of the space fliers' experience," says Franklin, "It's powerful. I don't think anyone can look at this book without being affected by it."
The Power of Vision
The story behind the creation of The Home Planet is almost as dramatic as the book itself. In 1985, when Kelley first articulated his idea, few believed a project of such magnitude was possible. Who could believe an ordinary person with no special credentials could produce a project involving millions of dollars and the cooperation of Soviet and American publishers, space agencies, and the most celebrated heroes of the world's great superpowers?
Kelley, an artist and photographer in Bolinas, California, had worked a great many jobs—architectural photographer, salmon fisher, boat builder, wild rice harvester, farmer, designer/inventor, sandblaster, contractor—but nothing seemed relevant to his sense of spiritual reality, what he called "the awesome mystery of life." Something was definitely missing. He was fascinated by photos of the Earth from space, and the reports that many astronauts and cosmonauts had been moved, even transformed, by a new awareness of the planet's beauty and fragility, and experienced a sense of connectedness to a spiritual reality. If some aspects of their experience were available to the rest of us, he wondered, would it move and transform us spiritually as well?
After several years of evolving the idea for the book, and slowly working through his doubts about its value and his own ability to make it happen, he decided to do it. He recalled the words of Nobel laureate physician Victor Weiskopf: "It is the duty of artists to communicate the major ideas of their time."
He realized what he wanted—an elegant, dynamic book containing the most stunning Earth photos available. He wanted even the production of the book to reflect the same "one planet, our home" message of the book itself. It should have quotes in English and Russian, co-publication by US and Soviet publishers, and worldwide release to as many people as possible at one time. "I wanted the book to rekindle our sense of awe and wonder, and raise our awareness of our place in the cosmos," he said. "To help people see themselves from, literally, a higher perspective."