I had forgotten about the wonderful Al Reinert/National Geographic Apollo documentary For All Mankind (not to be confused with the tv series of the same name) until I was reading the cd cover for Eno’s Apollo and was reminded that the soundtrack for the film was his. I had never seen the film but knew that it contained a considerable amount of Apollo film footage I had never seen. So we found a copy in our local library, watched the film, and enjoyed it. A humbling experience to say the least.
Here’s the interesting bit for purposes of this forum … the film bounces back and forth between the Mission Control crew and the astronauts in space. In the sequence when the ship is heading towards the Dark Side of the Moon and therefore out of communication with Mission Control, the engineers keep track by watching a real time computer screen showing trajectory and progress. And then I heard my always perspicacious wife say, “Oh look, it’s just like the album cover”. And I said “Huh?”. So I hit rewind and sure enough in the bottom right-hand corner of their monitor display was a small blue pyramid shape with what appears to be a beam of light entering from the left and them exiting in lines of color. (Badly reproduced below, the second image a blow-up of the pertinent image.)
Some online searching for the inspiration for the DSOTM cover highlighted the Hipgnosis connection and the selection of a glass prism for the album cover, “The design depicts a glass prism dispersing white light into colours and represents three elements: the band's stage lighting, the album lyrics, and Wright's request for a "simple and bold" design”. But nowhere could I find any mention of the Mission Control computer graphic as a source of inspiration. Hopefully this connection hasn’t been spotted before and discussed ad nauseam and that this Haven post has now added to the hype and folklore surrounding the album.
Here’s the interesting bit for purposes of this forum … the film bounces back and forth between the Mission Control crew and the astronauts in space. In the sequence when the ship is heading towards the Dark Side of the Moon and therefore out of communication with Mission Control, the engineers keep track by watching a real time computer screen showing trajectory and progress. And then I heard my always perspicacious wife say, “Oh look, it’s just like the album cover”. And I said “Huh?”. So I hit rewind and sure enough in the bottom right-hand corner of their monitor display was a small blue pyramid shape with what appears to be a beam of light entering from the left and them exiting in lines of color. (Badly reproduced below, the second image a blow-up of the pertinent image.)
Some online searching for the inspiration for the DSOTM cover highlighted the Hipgnosis connection and the selection of a glass prism for the album cover, “The design depicts a glass prism dispersing white light into colours and represents three elements: the band's stage lighting, the album lyrics, and Wright's request for a "simple and bold" design”. But nowhere could I find any mention of the Mission Control computer graphic as a source of inspiration. Hopefully this connection hasn’t been spotted before and discussed ad nauseam and that this Haven post has now added to the hype and folklore surrounding the album.
