APOLLO 11: Life Magazine. Special Edition. To the Moon and Back

SPACE EXPLORATION

Published by New York: Life Magazine [&] Look Magazine, 1969

About this Item

Inscribed to Two-Time Oscar Winner Leslie Bricusse by all Six Crew Members of Apollo 11 and Apollo 12 [SPACE EXPLORATION]. APOLLO 11: Life Magazine. Special Edition. To the Moon and Back. Time Inc. [1969]. August 11, 1969, special edition of LIFE magazine. 96 pp. [and] [SPACE EXPLORATION]. APOLLO 11: Look Magazine. On The Moon. Text by The New York Times. Photographs by The Astronauts. Commemorative painting by Norman Rockwell. Produced by Look Magazine. New York: The New York Times, 1969. 6 page folding color pictorial wrapper, 70 pp. The two magazines bound into one folio volume (13 x 10 1/4 inches; 330 x 260 mm.). Specially bound by the California Bookbinding Co., late 1970s/1980s in full brown calf, front cover ruled and titled in gilt "Man on the Moon / July 20, 1969 / Leslie Bricusse", maroon gloss endpapers. Inscribed on front blank leaf: "To Leslie / With Best Wishes / From Apollo 11 / Neil Armstrong / Buzz Aldrin / Michael Collins [and] To / Leslie /With best wishes / from Apollo XII / Charles Conrad / Dick Gordon / Alan L. Bean". Pasted onto the leaf is Buzz Aldrin's Starcraft Enterprises Sharespace Starbooster & Starcycler visiting card. From what I can remember that Leslie told me, this book was signed by the astronauts in the late 70s or the 80s. Additionally, pasted onto the front free endpaper is a folded color pictorial card: "Wishing your / 2000 best wishes / come true! / The Buzz Wish / For all Mankind / to experience / the wonder of space. / Lois & Buzz Aldrin". For millions who witnessed the Apollo 11 mission, the event might not have felt entirely real until LIFE magazine published its definitive account more than two weeks later. Watching on television or following it on the radio, the world saw humanity improbably walk on the moon. The delay was the price paid for accuracy, and the resulting special issue was both comprehensive and poetic, as LIFE captured "history's greatest exploration" in a way that television could not. The Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins reached out for destiny while 500 million people around the world watched the grainy black-and-white footage beamed back to Earth. For America, it was a moment of awe and possibility. LIFE magazine, having meticulously reported on the space program's triumphs and tragedies since before President John F. Kennedy's 1961 challenge to reach the moon, shared in this triumph. Less than a decade after JFK's bold proclamation, America achieved the goal. LIFE's account allows us to see and feel what it was like for the astronauts and for the countless others on Earth who watched, marveled, and willed them safely back home. APOLLO 11 was launched on July 16, 1969, at 8:32 AM CDT with the objective of achieving the first human landing on the Moon. The mission was crewed by Commander Neil Armstrong, Command Module Pilot Michael Collins, and Lunar Module Pilot Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin. The crew entered lunar orbit on the afternoon of July 19. On the following day, Armstrong and Aldrin began their descent to the lunar surface in the Lunar Module, Eagle. The intended landing site in the Sea of Tranquility was chosen for its flatness and safety, as surveyed by Apollo 10 at an altitude of 10 miles above the Moon. However, a navigation error resulted in Eagle being approximately 7 kilometers off from the planned location. During the 12.6-minute powered descent, the crew encountered five unexpected computer alarms indicating that the Eagle s computer was overloaded. Mission Control assessed each alarm and determined it was safe to proceed. The final alarm occurred less than three minutes before landing, with the Eagle at an altitude of under 500 meters. Due to the navigation error, the computer aimed the spacecraft towards a hazardous area filled with boulders near West Crater. Armstrong took manual control and guided Eagle to a safer location beyond the crater. At 3:17 PM CDT, Armstrong reported their successful landing with, "Houston. Seller Inventory # 05936

Bibliographic Details

Title: APOLLO 11: Life Magazine. Special Edition. ...

Publisher: New York: Life Magazine [&] Look Magazine, 1969

Signed: Signed by Author(s)

Edition: 1st Edition