Liftoff, Apollo 16, April 1972. The crew members were John Young, commander, Ken Mattingly, Command Module pilot, and Charles Duke, Lunar Module pilot. Lot 576, estimated worth about $300 to $460.

Going Once, Twice … Blast Off!

The largest collection of NASA photos ever was just auctioned in London

If ever the phrase “pics or it didn’t happen” applies, it’s when you say you just got back from outer space. Few things have been so transformative for humanity’s perspective as glimpsing the Earth as seen from the void. But it’s the images taken by astronauts—especially those in which a fellow human shares the frame with their home rock—that show both the immensity of humanity’s achievement and just how small we really are.

First US Spacewalk — Ed White’s EVA (Extra Vehicular Activity), Gemini 4, shot by James McDivitt on June 3, 1965. Within days of splashdown, McDivitt’s pictures appeared in newspapers and magazines around the world, marking a turning point in the role photography played in the space program and in the popular conception of manned space exploration. “I wasn’t the only one who felt the power of those images from space. Countless people saw them and understood their basic message: this was the edge of human experience.” Andrew Chaikin. Lot 24, estimated worth about $1200 to $1,850

Pictures like these are some of the best examples of the power images have to forever change the way we see the world. NASA has worked hard to keep this sense of astonishment alive, using images to connect the public with the excitement inherent in its work. And apparently that inspiration is also worth some money.

Today, the largest ever auction of photos from NASA’s history took place in London. From the Earth to the Moon is the name given to the private collection of nearly 700 lots comprising over 1,000 photos put under the hammer by Bloomsbury. Many of the images have never been published. The collection is valued at over $1,000,000.

Ed White in the pilot’s seat of the Gemini 4 capsule, shot by James McDivitt. Lot 22, estimated worth $600 to $900

The photos are impressive. The first ever image of the Earth seen from space, taken by a once-fearsome German V-2 rocket launched from the New Mexico desert in 1946. Photos taken by John Glenn—the first astronaut to orbit the earth or bring a camera into space. Photos from Edward White’s Gemini 4 spacewalk in 1965 and the final images from the Moon taken by Apollo 17 astronaut Eugene Cernan in 1972.

Among the lots are also panoramic mosaic photosets taken from the Lunar surface, a frame of which includes the only crisp image of Neil Armstrong during his historic moonwalk.

The first photograph from space, taken on 24 October 1946. Before 1946, the highest pictures ever taken of the Earth’s surface were from the Explorer II balloon which had ascended 13.7 miles in 1935. The official boundary of space is the Karman line which lies at an altitude of 62.5 miles. This historic photograph was taken by a 35-mm camera developed by Clyde Holliday of the APL and fitted on the 13th V-2 missile launched from the White Sands Missile Range. This is “how our Earth would look to visitors from another planet coming in on a spaceship” wrote Clyde Holliday in National Geographic in 1950. Lot 2, estimated worth $1200 to $1,500

Buzz Aldrin takes the first self-portrait in space, during the Gemini 12 mission, November 1966. Lot 80, estimated worth $900 to $1200

The only clear photograph of Neil Armstrong on the Moon, taken by Buzz Aldrin during the Apollo 11 mission in July 1969. For almost twenty years the only pictures known of Neil Armstrong on the Moon were a few grainy images from the TV camera and the 16-mm motion picture camera. NASA believed that no Hasselblad photograph existed of the first man on the Moon. However, in 1987 two British researchers studying the Apollo 11 voice transcripts realized that one of the photographs in a panorama taken by Aldrin included Neil Armstrong working at the Lunar Module. The error probably arose within days of the mission’s conclusion when Brian Duff, besieged by the world’s media as head of Public Affairs at MSC in Houston, asked Neil Armstrong if he ever gave the camera to Buzz Aldrin. Armstrong answered a simple “no” because according to the flight plan he was required to place the camera on a lower bay of the LM from where Aldrin would pick it up when he was ready. This photograph, unseen by the general public at the time, was not included in the selection made for general distribution by the Public Affairs Office who explained Armstrong’s conspicuous absence by stating that Aldrin never had the camera. As a result, vintage prints of the image are extremely rare; this example was probably printed at the request of a NASA staff member. Lot 259, estimated worth $1,500 to $2,300

The auction’s catalog of photos reads like a personal and historical account of the space race itself. It spans not only the striking images of our fragile blue marble and daring rocket men, but also the scientists behind the rockets, the presidential photo ops, concept art and even photos of the “enemy” satellite that spurred American scientists to ever greater heights.

After missions, NASA didn’t release every image they took, keeping many under storage for research at the Johnson Space Center (formerly the Manned Spacecraft Center) in Houston. How such a rich visual account of American history fell into the hands of an overseas private collector is not being revealed, but the auction and preceding exhibition have stirred up a lot of excitement.

Buzz Aldrin’s photo of Neil Armstrong on the Moon fetched a cool £6,200 (about $9500 U.S.), while Apollo 8's Earthrise photo sold for £9,920 (about $15,000). The collector approached Bloomsbury to put these images up after their success in putting a much smaller catalogue of NASA images on the block in 2011.

“Apart from the mosaics, it has been the classic images which have attracted most attention — notably Buzz Aldrin’s “visor” portrait by Armstrong (lot262), the first Earthrise seen by Man, Apollo 8, 1968 (lot 155) and the first complete view of Earth, the “blue marble” from Apollo 17, 1972 (lot633),” said a Bloomsbury representative.

Apollo 11 lifts off on its historic flight to the Moon, taken by Ralph Morse on July 16, 1969. Perhaps Morse’s greatest image for Life Magazine: “You have to realize that the rocket had to go through the camera, in a sense. It had to go through the camera’s field of view. It took me two years to get NASA to agree to let me make this shot. Now, RCA had the camera contract at Cape Canaveral at that time, and they had a steel box-with optical glass-attached to the launch platform. We negotiated a deal with them and I was able to put a Nikon, with maybe 30 or 40 feet of film, inside the box, looking out through the glass. The camera was wired into the launch countdown, and at around minus-four seconds the camera started shooting something like ten frames per second,” said Ralph Morse. Lot 317, estimated worth $1,500 to $2,300

At a time when the International Space Station has its own Instagram feed, it’s easy to forget the profundity of these pictures, and tempting to dilute their impact by re-contextualizing what they represent in today’s terms (see: Buzz Aldrin’s “first space selfie” of 1966 above). But these images represent a special triumph of a generation of scientists and engineers who tackled some of the toughest problems ever faced, using little more than slide-rulers and cunning. And the astronauts who took these breathtaking shots somehow did so while being monitored for the unknown effects of space travel (would you have the wherewithal to take a good photo if you were told your eyeballs might start to deform in zero-gravity?)

View of the giant Saturn V rocket on the pad at dawn with the Moon in background — Apollo 4, 9 November 1967. Apollo 4 was the first test flight of Wernher von Braun’s colossal three-stage Saturn V rocket destined for the Moon. “It will free man from the remaining chains, the chains of gravity which still tie him to this planet,” said Wernher von Braun. Lot 115, estimated worth $300 to $450

Florida Peninsula looking East taken by Walter Cunningham aboard Apollo 7, October 1968. “Everything came together on day nine, and we found ourselves looking at the Florida Peninsula, which had been our home for much of the preceding three years. Grabbing the Hasselblad camera, I perpetrated a photographic no-no, taking this picture looking into the sun,” said Cunningham. Lot 132, estimated worth $600 to $900

Russell Schweickart’s EVA, photographed by David Scott from the Apollo 9 capsule, March 1969. While David Scott was photographing him during his standup EVA, Schweickart made his own spacewalk to test the new spacesuit and backpack designed for moonwalking astronauts. Lot 167, estimated worth $600 to $900

It’s a cliche to say that the world needs heroes, but the golden age of NASA gave us plenty of them. Brilliant engineers, scientists, and hotshot pilots with personal glory on the line brought about an unprecedented expansion of what human beings believed possible for our species to achieve. All of that—accomplished by a government agency, no less—was caught in pictures for us to admire.

It’s excellent to see that the public still gets excited by artifacts from this transformative time in human history, and these images should be exciting whether or not they’re up for sale. Their value is not inherent in whether they’ve been published or even seen before, but in how rare the era they captured is. And there’s no reason that era should ever come to an end.

These are singular photos. They convey the perspective of our existence more than any others. But space is infinite, and holds infinite wonders yet to inspire us if we would use even a fraction of the funding poured into, say, weapons in order to keep exploring it. Space brings humans together like nothing else because it shows us our common context — basically the only place the U.S. and Russia get along anymore is on the ISS.

As NASA returns its gaze to the Moon and beyond to Mars, the first images that proved it was possible to slip Earth’s surly bonds can serve to inspire new generations to push still further. That’s something you can’t buy for any price.

Earth as seen by Apollo 11, July 1969. Lot 318, estimated worth $6,150 to $9,250

All photos courtesy of Bloomsbury Auctions

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