The Great Wall - can you see it from space?
Trip Start
Jan 30, 2007
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Trip End
Dec 31, 2011
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Xichang,
China
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
that the Great Wall is the only man-made structure able to be seen with the naked eye from space.
Where that notion began, no one is sure. But long before humans had the ability to get into space, people like adventurer/lecturer Richard Halliburton were making the claim that the Wall was the only human structure discernible from space. That was back in the 1930s.
Despite evidence to the contrary since space exploration took off in the late 1960s, the myth has persisted.
And even after China became the 5th nation to launch a space program - back in 1970 with the appropriately named Mao-1 hurled into orbit by the Long March-1 rocket from Inner Mongolia - the 'fairy tale' stayed firm in the hearts of the Chinese.
Four years ago, when China puts its first astronaut in space, the awful truth was revealed to the Chinese from one of there own. Yang Liwei came clean and admitted "The Earth looked very beautiful from space, but I did not see our Great Wall."
His admission, which dented national pride, was debated at the highest levels within the CCP, and textbook editors were asked to correct the error, which had featured in many school textbooks. End of story?
No. Despite Yang Liwei's statement, there has been on-going efforts to prove that the Great Wall can be seen from space. It seems to be more a matter of nationalism than science.
The myth about the Wall is central to China's self-image.
The Wall - by radar
It wants to be seen as the centre of the world. And the only nation capable of creating a structure which is viewed from space. Sure, there would be some cause for celebration if the invading Marians said, "We were driving in your galaxy and noticed this Wall, so decided to check it out."
But for China, the importance of the Wall is more to do with how they see themselves and how others see them. Many Chinese believe that with modern technology - thanks Germany, US, UK, France - that they will regain their rightful place at the centre of the globe, as a the most populous nation on earth, the next superpower, and the nation whose superiority will be demonstrated to the world with next year's Beijing Olympic gold medal tally.
Getting back to the re-writing of the Wall's importance, there has been debate over whether it is really visible from space or not. Some argue that Yang Liwei might have seen it if the conditions had been right. There is also arguments over how far into space you have to be, and also what other man-made objects are visible from space. And whether you can see objects with your naked eye, or if you need some binoculars.
Astronauts in the space shuttle, which is orbiting at 217km or 135 miles high are able to pick out highways, airports and dams, while at 400 km up - 250 miles - in the International Space Station, they can see cities and the countryside.
Over the last few decades, the importance of the Wall to China has been declining.
The Wall - can you see it?
First, there was the diluted claim that the Wall could be seen, along with the dykes of Holland. Then, post-2004, there have been the counter-claims. For example, that you can see many structures from space, such as the Pyramids and even Beijing's Third Ring road. And I've heard that in the early days of the Space War between Russia and the US, that the Russian cosmonauts complained about a floodlit church tower called Boston Stump which was dazzling in space as its lights pointed up to the heavens. So has anyone seen the Wall from space? Kind of. Chinese-American astronaut Leroy Chiao recently returned from a stint on the joint US-Russian space station with some photos which were said to be of sections of the Wall. He used a 180mm zoom lens, and wasn't sure if they were of the Wall or something else in the region 'northwest of Beijing'. Earlier, a photograph of the Wall turned out to be of a snaking river.
Chiao himself wasn't sure if he had photographed the Wall. "It's hard to say whether or not I have seen it. That's because from our altitude, I cannot distinguish between the Wall and roads."
Photos, enhanced by winter snow, taken by Chiao on an earlier space-stay were later verified by NASA as the first of the Great Wall. The photos have been enhanced by remote sensing experts to highlight the Wall. Word of the sighting was greeted in China as front-page news, as confirmation of the story.
The fact is, the 6350km-long Wall is hard to distinguish because it is only a few metres wide and constructed of the same materials as the surrounding countryside.
The Wall - somewhere
The colour and texture of the hair-like stone Wall is similar to its hinterland. As US astronaut Jay Apt pointed out, "We look for the Great Wall of China. Although we can see things as small as airport runways, the Great Wall seems to be made largely of materials that have the same colour as the surrounding soil. Despite persistent stories that it can be seen from the Moon, the Great Wall is almost invisible from only 180 miles up."While it is very difficult to see the Wall with the naked eye - you need ideal conditions and to be at the right place at the right time - it is possible to see much of the hidden wall with the aid of remote sensing and radar imagery.
So where did the urban myth come from? The Straight Dope's pundit Cecil Adams says, "Nobody knows exactly where the story got started, although some think it was speculation by some bigshot during an after-dinner speech in the early days of the space program."
What I find interested in all the debate, that those issues of the Wall, nations, borders and size all get diminished. Essentially, from the Moon, the earth looks like a big blue marble. You can't make out the continents for all the water of the oceans and clouds.
NASA astronaut Alan Bean in Tom Burnam's book More Misinformation says, "The only thing you can see from the moon is a beautiful sphere, mostly white (clouds), some blue (ocean), patches of yellow (deserts), and every once in a while some green vegetation. No man-made object is visible on this scale. In fact, when first leaving earth's orbit and only a few thousand miles away, no man-made object is visible at that point either."
So if the Great Wall can barely be seen just a few hundred miles from the Earth, there's no chance of seeing it from the Moon, right? You would think so, but just as the ink is drying on the new textbooks for Chinese kids, there's a ray of hope for those with old editions of Trivial Pursuits. An old US astronaut, who seems destined to be a hero for the Chinese, claims the Great Wall was visible not just from space - but also the Moon.
The Wall seems central to Chinese identity, but recent books have undermined its status, alluding to the human role in its construction, and how the structure reveals much about China's attitudes towards outsiders - whether they are invaders from the north or New York businessmen trying to set up factories to make cheap sneakers.
China wants to hold onto the notion that it is the only nation on earth who has created a universally-significant structure, one which shows its dominance as well as its mastery over nature. Today much of that 2,200 year old Wall is in rubble or buried under sand. And the most recent images of the Earth show that despite our efforts, human endeavour pales in significance to the grandeur of the universe.
