One Giant Leap for Mankind: Vintage Photographs from the Victor Martin-Malburet Collection 
28 October 2022
One Giant Leap for Mankind: Vintage Photographs from the Victor Martin-Malburet Collection 
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The first spacecraft to carry humans to another world: Apollo Spacecraft 103 Command Module, NASA [Apollo 8], 22 July 1968

printed 1968
vintage chromogenic print on fiber-based Kodak paper 10 h × 8 w in (25 × 20 cm)
estimate: $700–1,000
result: $585
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The first manned lunar spacecraft is seen on transport dolly after manufacturing at North American Rockwell Corporation at Downey, California
Numbered with North American Rockwell references and dated to left margin with NASA MSC caption and 'A Kodak Paper' watermarks to verso.

print

Apollo 8 had been scheduled to test the Lunar Module in Earth orbit, but it was not ready to fly. So the schedule was juggled and William Anders, James Lovell and Frank Borman became the first astronauts to ride the gigantic Saturn V booster into space on board the Apollo Spacecraft 103 Command Module. Their mission was to break the grip of Earth gravity and to fly around the Moon and back.

“We changed our plans on Apollo 8. They changed the mission from an Earth orbital type to a flight to the Moon. And it was a bold move. It had some risky aspects to it. But it was a time when we made bold moves.”

—James Lovell (from the 2007 documentary In The Shadow of the Moon)

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