To the moon and back

Nasa's original photos of the Apollo missions, kept locked in a freezer in Houston, are some of Now, they have been restored the most vital artefacts of human endeavour. and remastered for a new century. Astronaut Tim Peake looks on in wonder at a space odyssey

- Candice Pires

YOU HAVE TO MAKE TIME FOR AWE AND WONDER. When you’re working in space, you’re so mission-focused, you can almost forget your environment. It can be hard to process the remoteness and isolation until you get back to Earth. The cover image of Apollo Remastered (seen above) , a new book of restored images from the Nasa archive billed as the ultimate photographic record of humankind’s greatest adventure, is of Commander Jim McDivitt looking up on Apollo 9 in 1969 . I think a lot of people read awe and wonder in his face, but I see immense concentration; he’s docking the lunar module. When you’re docking, you’re using a robotic arm to grab another visiting vehicle, and it’s the most intense 90 seconds of your life. Everything depends on you.

Where I do see that awe and wonder is in a picture of Neil Armstrong moments after his historic moon walk ( bottom centre) . He’s back in the capsule and his face says: “Oh my God, what have we just done?” He looks as if he’s probably finding it quite hard to process. You see a lot of posed pictures of him, but the smile here is so genuine. Imagine knowing you’re one of the first humans to set foot on another celestial body. Look closely and there’s a tear in his eye.

I was born in 1972 into a world where humans had walked on the moon. My mum loved space, so we watched all the space shuttle launches on television together. I remember seeing grainy images of Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the moon’s surface. The incredible engineering accomplishment that Apollo 11 represented opened me to the potential that we could do anything.