Making of ‘AS11-40-5878’ (by Edwin Aldrin, 1969), 2014

The story behind the photograph…

AS11-40-5878 is the NASA frame reference number for one of the defining images of the Apollo moon landings. The photograph was taken by Edwin ‘Buzz’ Aldrin (b. 1930) during surface EVA (extravehicular activity) on 21 July 1969. The purpose of the photographs taken during the Apollo 11 expedition was, apart from the flag salutes, mostly scientific. The image of Aldrin’s bootprint pressed into the lunar soil – while being the photograph that readily communicated to those back on Earth the ‘giant leap for mankind’ and the exhilaration of the moon landings – was, in fact, the visual documentation of an experiment to test the compressibility of the moon’s surface in response to human footprints. Aldrin and his commander, Neil Armstrong, were equipped with three Hasselblad 500EL cameras for the mission, one of which – known as the ‘Data Camera’ and fitted with a specially commissioned f5.6/60mm Zeiss lens – was used to capture the image. While it seems entirely monochrome in appearance, it was actually shot on colour film.