Out of this world! NASA’s amazing, newly-restored images of space exploration, from the 1950s though to Artemis

Images from Artemis and all of the previous NASA programs are showcased in the book The NASA Photo Book, which is probably the most comprehensive photographic documentation of NASA’s history ever published, as it runs from the early days of the agency in 1958 right up to the 2026 mission of Artemis II.

Photography has played a crucial role in the history of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) since its formation in July 1958. How else would we have seen Apollo 11’s Buzz Aldrin on the surface of the Moon or the famous ‘Earthrise’ photograph taken by Apollo 8 astronaut Bill Anders on Christmas Eve 1968?

NASA succeeded the 43-year-old National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) and began operations on 1 October 1958. It ran programs such as Project Mercury (1958 to 1963), which was previously the US Air Force’s ‘Man in Space Soonest’ program, with the original objective of getting a person into Earth orbit as soon as possible. Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin’s successful Earth orbit on 12 April 1961 quickly trumped that objective.

It wasn’t until 1961 that the future direction of NASA, and its subsequent photographic policy, became clearer. James E. Webb was appointed as Administrator of NASA in February 1961 and, just four months later, US President John F. Kennedy made a request to Congress to fund a program to land US men on the Moon before the end of the 1960s.

Project Gemini and Project Apollo also began in 1961. Gemini was based on studies to increase the capabilities of the Mercury spacecraft to long-duration flights. It was a support project to Apollo with a focus on extravehicular activity, rendezvous and docking.

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