Earth Day 2026: A View From 250,000 Miles Away, and Right Here on the Ground

OSF Writer
23 hours ago
5 min read

From left to right, NASA astronauts Andre Douglas, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch, CSA (Canadian Space Agency) astronauts Jenni Gibbons, NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman, and CSA astronaut Jeremy Hansen pose for a photo before the Artemis II crew proceed to a media event on March 27, 2026. Douglas and Gibbons are the backup crew members for the mission; they would join the crew if a NASA or CSA astronaut, respectively, is unable to take part in the flight. Image credit: NASA/Josh Valcarcel

This Earth Day 2026 hits a little different.

Just two weeks ago, the Artemis II crew; Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen, became the first humans to travel to the Moon since 1972. They flew 252,760 miles from home, breaking the distance record set by Apollo 13 more than fifty years ago. And from everything they've shared, what stood out most wasn't the lunar surface. It was the view looking back.

Silhouette of a person gazing at Earth from a spaceship window, displaying vast blue oceans and swirling white clouds in space. — "Thinking of You, Earth" Image credit: NASA

NASA published a photo titled "Thinking of You, Earth", Commander Reid Wiseman, peering through Orion's cabin window on April 4, watching our planet grow smaller as the crew pushed deeper toward the Moon. On Flight Day 5, the crew captured Earth framed against the blackness of space, visibly shrinking in the window as they journeyed closer to the lunar surface. And as they crossed into the Moon's gravitational pull, Mission Specialist Christina Koch marked the moment: the crew was no longer rising away from Earth, they were falling toward the Moon.

Earth rising above the lunar surface against a dark space background. Earth shows a partial view with visible clouds and oceans. — The Artemis II crew captured this view of Earth setting on April 6, 2026, as they flew around the Moon. As the astronauts flew over the Moon’s far side, the crew photographed and described terrain features including impact craters, ancient lava flows, and surface cracks and ridges formed as the Moon slowly evolved over time. They also noted differences in color, brightness and texture, which provide clues that help scientists understand the composition and history of the lunar surface. The image is reminiscent of the iconic Earthrise image taken by astronaut Bill Anders 58 years earlier as the Apollo 8 crew flew around the Moon. The Apollo 8 mission was the first crewed spacecraft to circumnavigate the Moon. For more imagery from the mission, visit our Artemis II Multimedia Page. Image credit: NASA

Then came the Earthset. On April 6, during the lunar flyby, the crew photographed Earth setting behind the Moon's cratered horizon at 6:41 p.m. EDT. In the image, a blue Earth with white cloud patterns slips behind the rim of Ohm crater, its terraced edges and central peaks filling the foreground. Half the planet is in daylight; the other half in darkness. It's one of the most striking photographs of our planet ever taken, and only a handful of people in history have seen that view with their own eyes.

Before the mission, Wiseman put it simply during a NASA interview: the work they're doing isn't about legacy, it's about showing up every day and using your energy for something that adds value to the world. That's not a grand statement. It's a discipline.

That perspective is worth sitting with on Earth Day, April 22, 2026.

What Earth Day Means for a Production Company

At One Sol Film Company, we're a small operation. We're not a sustainability nonprofit or an environmental consultancy. We're a production studio and commercial drone company based in Atlanta. But the tools we use every day, AI software, drone aircraft, high-performance computing hardware, all carry an environmental footprint. We think it's worth being honest about that.

Our Approach to Responsible and Sustainable AI

AI is part of how we work. We use it for business planning, content development, research, workflow optimization, and creative concepting. It makes a solo operation more capable than it would be otherwise, and we're not going to pretend we don't rely on it.

But we also recognize that large-scale AI computing consumes real energy and real resources. Data centers draw power. Training models have a carbon cost. And the industry is scaling faster than most sustainability frameworks can keep up with.

Here's where we stand:

AI is a tool, not a replacement. We're sure you heard this by now, across industries. Every project we deliver, whether it's aerial footage, a construction progress report, or a creative treatment, is directed, reviewed, and finalized by a human creative. AI assists the process. It doesn't own the output.
We choose efficiency over excess. We don't run speculative AI workloads for the sake of experimentation. When we use AI tools, it's targeted, solving a specific problem, producing a specific deliverable, informing a specific decision. That discipline matters, not just creatively, but in terms of the compute resources we're actually consuming.
We favor local processing where possible. Our workstation handles photogrammetry, video rendering, and AI-assisted workflows locally rather than offloading everything to cloud infrastructure. Running processes on hardware you own and power yourself is more accountable than treating cloud compute as invisible.
Transparency over greenwashing. We're not going to slap a carbon-neutral badge on our website and call it a day. We're a small company learning as we go. What we can commit to is being honest about the tools we use and making intentional choices about how we use them.

Drone Operations and Environmental Responsibility

Our drone work carries its own considerations. Every flight we run through One Sol Aerial is planned, permitted through LAANC, and executed with purpose, not only for FAA compliance, but because unnecessary flights burn battery cycles, generate e-waste over time, and add to airspace congestion in ways the industry is only beginning to reckon with.

We also see drone technology as a net positive for the industries we serve. Aerial inspections reduce the need for scaffolding, boom lifts, and multi-person site visits. Construction progress monitoring from the air means fewer vehicle trips to job sites. That math matters when you add it up across hundreds of projects.

Earth viewed from space, with swirling white clouds over blue oceans and brown landmasses, set against a black starry background. — NASA astronaut and Artemis II Commander Reid Wiseman took this picture of Earth from the Orion spacecraft’s window after completing the translunar injection burn. There are two auroras (top right and bottom left) and zodiacal light (bottom right) is visible as the Earth eclipses the Sun. This and another photo of Earth are the first downlinked images from the Artemis II astronauts. See more photos from Orion as they are shared. See and hear what the astronauts do with our 24/7 feed. Image credit: NASA/Reid Wiseman

The Bigger Picture

The Artemis II crew didn't set out to make a statement about environmentalism. They went to test a spacecraft and photograph the Moon. But sometimes the most important thing a mission gives us is a change in perspective, and the images they sent back are a reminder that this planet, seen from far enough away, looks exactly like what it is: singular, finite, and worth taking care of.

Earth Day is a good day to think about what that means for how we run our business. At One Sol Film Company, we're committed to creating with intention, using technology responsibly, and staying honest about where we fall short. It's how we want to operate.

Have a Happy Earth Day 2026!

One Sol Film Company is an Atlanta-based production studio offering photography, drone/aerial services, real estate media, and creative production. One Sol Aerial provides FAA Part 107 certified drone services across the Atlanta and Charlotte markets.

onesolfilmco.com | onesolfilmco.com/aerial

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