The space rocket I could have been aboard explodes: Rhiannon Adam’s best photograph

‘I was chosen to go around the Moon on a SpaceX starship. Preparations took over my life. Then, four minutes into watching a rocket on a test flight, it broke apart. And that was the end of my adventure’

T his photograph was taken on 20 April 2023 from the VIP section of SpaceX’s launch viewing area, looking out from South Padre Island, Texas, towards Boca Chica, a nature reserve near the Mexican border which is home to SpaceX’s Starbase launchpad. In 2021, I and seven other civilians were selected from an open call to go around the Moon on a free SpaceX Starship flight funded by the Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa. The dearMoon Project included myself and another photographer. For me, the story also became about being plucked from obscurity and planted in this very surreal world I could never have imagined being a part of in a million years. At the time, only 24 white American men had orbited or landed on the moon. Being selected for something like that changes your life and your perception of your worth in the world. The flight, originally scheduled for 2023, completely took over my life. It took the air out of every room, I couldn’t talk about anything else. People stopped commissioning me because they assumed I was busy going to space; every conversation I had was about it. This was going to be the rest of my life.

That day in April was pivotal. We were there to watch SpaceX’s Integrated Flight Test 1. After four minutes, following a relatively successful liftoff, the vehicle experienced what they call in space terms an “RUD”, Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly, and broke apart in the air. We put on a brave face but secretly I was thinking: “Wow, the risks are no longer theoretical. I could have been on that.” The dust cloud in the image emerged from the concrete launchpad and tower, obliterated by the power of the raptor engines. The debris ended up all over the local houses and SpaceX closed the launch facility for reconstruction for four months while they conducted a huge clean-up operation. Going to space feels futuristic and grandiose but there are still the practical problems, like people wiping dust off their windows.

Unbeknown to me, this photograph marked the beginning of the end of dearMoon. We didn’t know at that time there was trouble in paradise and a loss of faith in the project and its viability. Maezawa had gone back to Japan after the first launch attempt had been scrubbed the day before, and so missed this launch. Eventually, in mid 2024, we all received an email invite to a zoom call. We were told that they were not continuing the project, but it was made to sound like the disappointment should be only equal to finding out your favourite TV show was cancelled. But it was completely flooring. This wasn’t just a project, it had become my whole identity. I still dreamed about it every night. It was a poisoned chalice and it obliterated my career as I knew it.

This photograph is now part of my Rhi-Entry project, which is my version of a modern-day tragic cycle. I am Icarus, who flew too close to the sun and my wings melted. It is both tongue-in-cheek and deadly serious, moving through bathos, pathos and hamartia. The exhibition combines the visual tropes of the space museum, brings together facts and fiction, a reflection on the past and my fears for the future, with my personal story as its spine. The irony is, all of my work is about calling out structural abuses of power, and I was blinded by the wild promise of an almost impossible dream. I wanted to change how we collectively feel about who is selected to go to space. I’m a 5ft 2in, gobby, messy queer who grew up on a sailing boat. Living in a tin can floating with blackness above and below, surviving with what you have, it was the closest thing on Earth to going to space, and uniquely prepared me for potentially leaving our planet. We still think of people who go to space as untouchable superheroes. The chiselled-jaw GI Joe lookalike with a wife at home. I wanted to break that mould. It was also about exploring ideas and debates around the colonisation and ownership of space, and who has the right to explore it, and to craft our collective future.

Rhi-Entry is at the International Centre for the Image, Dublin , until 23 December. Rhiannon Adam’s work is also part of Space @ Fotografiska Tallinn until 17 January. Her book Polaroid: The Missing Manual is published by Thames and Hudson. See more @rhiannon_adam

Born: Cork, Ireland, 1985 High point: Being selected for dearMoon. Strangers coming up to me to tell me that my book Big Fence changed the way that they move through the world Top tip: It never gets easier, so don’t expect it to! Remember that we’re all in the same boat; you can win the biggest award at 20 or at 85, and whichever way it happens, don’t count your chickens. Be nice to everyone, be generous with your time, treat others as you want to be treated, being a diva isn’t a good look. No matter how much success you have, remember half of it was luck and being in the right place at the right time. Listen to Baz Luhrmann’s Everybody’s Free to Wear Sunscreen at least once a year