Blog

The Road to the Moon Landings – Surveyor – National Geographic, 1966

In the upcoming two weeks, Iconic Photos would cover the NASA missions to the other space and the Moon as they appeared in leading picture magazines of the time: Life, Epoca, Paris-Match, Look, Sunday Times, etc.

These documents are not just historical records: they are tributes to the bravery and ingenuity of the astronauts and engineers who took humanity’s first steps into the vastness of space. They celebrate a time when space was a new and dangerous frontier, and each mission captured the world’s imagination.


From June 1966 through January 1968, NASA sent seven robotic spacecraft to the surface of the Moon as part of Surveyor Program. Its primary goal was to test soft landings on the Moon, and the Surveyor craft became the first American spacecraft to achieve soft landing on an extraterrestrial body.

The Surveyor craft were not recovered, and the photos that LIFE magazine published on July 1, 1966 were transmitted from the Moon, across 230,000 miles of space. Two of the pictures were in accurate color — to achieve this, NASA had to go through a complex reproduction. LIFE magazine wrote at the time:

[Picture] of the moon floor was not actually taken in color; it was photographed three times by Surveyor’s TV camera, first through a red, then through a green, then through a blue filter. Each picture’s distant signal was picked up on earth, put on video tape and piped into a cathode-ray tube, and photographed in black and white. When the resulting three black-and-white pictures were projected on a screen, one on top of another, each through its own colored filter, a full-color picture could be seen.

Due to its publication schedules, the articles in National Geographic were published several months after the missions they covered, and thus lack the immediacy of LIFE Magazine. For instance, an article detailing the first images from the Surveyor appeared only in October 1966 edition of the magazine.

Liked it? Take a second to support Iconic Photos on Patreon!
Iconic Photos

Iconic Photos is a weekly series of blog posts that aims to educate readers about history, culture, and global politics using the medium of photos and photography. Since 2009, we have produced over 1,000 blog posts, and covered a wide variety of topics -- historical, political, artistic, criminal, moral, psychological, sartorial, financial, and scientific aspects of issues and ideas around photographic arts, from over 90 countries.

View Comments

  • I got what you mean , regards for posting.Woh I am thankful to find this website through google.

  • I have been absent for a while, but now I remember why I used to love this blog. Thanks, I will try and check back more frequently. How frequently you update your site?

  • The next time I read a blog, I hope that it doesnt disappoint me as much as this one. I mean, I know it was my choice to read, but I actually thought youd have something interesting to say. All I hear is a bunch of whining about something that you could fix if you werent too busy looking for attention.

  • I like this website very much, Its a real nice place to read and get information. "Do pleasant things yourself, but unpleasant things through others." by Baltasar Gracian.

  • What Is LeanBiome?LeanBiome is a natural weight loss supplement that reverses bacterial imbalance in your gut microbiome with the help of nine science-backed lean bacteria species with Greenselect Phytosome, a caffeine-free green tea extract crafted with patented

  • hi!,I like your writing very much! percentage we communicate more approximately your post on AOL? I need a specialist in this space to resolve my problem. May be that is you! Looking forward to peer you.

  • I like meeting utile info, this post has got me even more info!

  • I loved as much as you will receive carried out right here. The sketch is attractive, your authored subject matter stylish. nonetheless, you command get got an nervousness over that you wish be delivering the following. unwell unquestionably come further formerly again as exactly the same nearly very often inside case you shield this hike.

  • Hey very cool website!! Man .. Excellent .. Amazing .. I'll bookmark your site and take the feeds also…I'm happy to find numerous useful information here in the post, we need work out more techniques in this regard, thanks for sharing. . . . . .

1 2 3 5
Share
Published by
Iconic Photos

Recent Posts

The Truth about the Beijing Turmoil

Busy was the Chinese Communist Party in the first few days after it brutally suppressed…

5 months ago

Tiananmen – The Sunday Times Magazine, 1989

Four months after the massacre, as the Communist regimes in Eastern Europe also looking increasingly…

5 months ago

The Problem that makes all Europe Wonder – Picture Post, 1945

This was the third major story Picture Post published on the Holocaust, after the liberations…

5 months ago

The Problem that makes all Europe Wonder – Picture Post, 1945

When Nordhausen concentration camp in Thuringia was liberated by the 104th US Infantry Division on…

5 months ago

The 8th Army Breaks Open a Concentration Camp in Italy – Picture Post, 1943

Six weeks after Mussolini's downfall, in September 1943, the British 8th Army liberated an Italian…

5 months ago

Hell and High Water by Jonas Karlsson, Vanity Fair, 2005

After the levees gave way in New Orleans, editors and photographers from Vanity Fair waded…

5 months ago