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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"Task Accomplished… July 1969": celebrations at Mission Control, NASA [Apollo 11], 24 July 1969

printed 1969
vintage gelatin silver print on fiber-based paper 8 h × 10 w in (20 × 25 cm)
estimate: $800–1,200
result: $282
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On the screens of Mission Control in Houston were the famous words of President Kennedy to Congress in May 1961: “I believe that this Nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to Earth.” followed by: “Task Accomplished… July 1969”.
Numbered to verso 'S-69-40023' with NASA MSC caption.

note: Media visuals referencing the original NASA photograph(s) not included.
literature: National Geographic, December 1969, ppg. 784-785 illustrates a variation LIFE, 11 August 1969 illustrates a variation

print

On the screens of Mission Control in Houston were the famous words of President Kennedy to Congress in May 1961: 

“I believe that this Nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to Earth,” followed by, “Task Accomplished…July 1969."


National Geographic, December 1969
LIFE, 11 August 1969 illustrates related photo

Overall view of the Mission Operations Control Room (MOCR) in the Mission Control Center (MCC), Building 30, Manned Spacecraft Center (MSC), showing the flight controllers celebrating the successful conclusion of the Apollo 11 lunar landing mission.
[NASA caption] 

“The world of the 1970s will be vastly different from the world of the 1960s, and many of the changes in it will result directly from the new perspective that we have suddenly acquired. By heeding the lessons learned in the last decade, and attacking our many problems with the same spirit, determination and skill with which we have ventured into space, we can make ‘this island Earth’ a better planet on which to live.”

—NASA administrator George Low, October 1970 (NASA SP-250, foreword)

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