Why Haven't We Seen a Photograph of the Whole Earth Yet?

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In 1966, American author and editor of counterculture magazine The Whole Earth Catalogue, Stewart Brand, waged a campaign to have NASA release a satellite photo of earth from space that they were rumored to possess. Brand believed that the image of planet earth could be a powerful symbol for “evoking a sense of shared destiny and adaptive strategies from people.” Brand decided on the slogan “Why haven’t we seen a photograph of the whole earth yet?” to represent his campaign and subsequently had several hundred buttons and posters made with the slogan printed on them. Brand then spent time mailing the buttons out to NASA officials, members of congress and their secretaries, Soviet scientists, UN officials, and various diplomats. It was reported that the buttons made their way onto the lapels of many a NASA employee and, the following year in 1967, an image of earth as viewed from space was released to the public.