Sunday, July 20, 2014

Shoot the Moon

AP Photo/NASA/Neil Armstrong
Today marks the 45th anniversary of Apollo 11's moon landing, which took place on July 20, 1969. Born exactly a year later, I grew up during a time when many of NASA's space race achievements had already been realized, but I think my generation has always had stars in our eyes... dreaming about what a trip to space might feel like never gets old.

Last month I had a chance to speak with one of the men aboard that historic Apollo mission: Buzz Aldrin was the second man to ever walk on the moon, following the first steps of fellow astronaut Neil Armstrong, who passed away in 2012. Aldrin and I had a rather lengthy phone conversation in June to discuss a potential project that would commemorate the anniversary—it was, of course, fascinating to hear about history from one of the men who made it. Lately, the pioneer has been encouraging further space exploration, including the idea of a permanent human presence on Mars (which he wrote about earlier this month). 

So, I'll keep you posted on any further developments about our possible collaboration (who knows, maybe I'll be blogging from the red planet at some point). In the meantime, here is a short clip from the video I created for Norman Rockwell Museum's 2013/2014 exhibition, Wendell Minor's America. In the clip, Minor talks about his work with Aldrin, illustrating the astronaut's two picture books, Reaching for the Moon (2005) and Look to the Stars (2009)—these two books are great for us "children" who weren't around to witness man's first steps on the moon, but surely benefitted from it. 



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