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Lot 361
[Apollo 15] PORTRAIT OF JAMES IRWIN AND THE LUNAR ROVER IN FRONT OF MOUNT HADLEY David Scott, 26 July - 7 August 1971, EVA 1
14 – 28 April 2025, 12:00 CEST
Paris, Avenue HocheSold for €1,024 inc. premium
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[Apollo 15] PORTRAIT OF JAMES IRWIN AND THE LUNAR ROVER IN FRONT OF MOUNT HADLEY
David Scott, 26 July - 7 August 1971, EVA 1
Printed 1971.
Vintage chromogenic print on fibre-based Kodak paper [NASA image AS15-86-11603].
Numbered "NASA AS15-86-11603" in red in the top margin, with "A Kodak Paper" watermark on the reverse (issued by NASA Manned Spacecraft Centre, Houston, Texas).
20.3 x 25.4 cm. (8 x 10 in.)
Historical context
Exploration at its greatest.
This extraordinary photograph, taken by David Scott at the end of Apollo 15's first EVA, captures James Irwin and the Lunar Rover beneath Mount Hadley. In the foreground, the Lunar Module's shadow stretches across the surface, adding to the haunting beauty of this alien world.
Amidst the barren, majestic landscape of Hadley-Apennine, James Irwin tends to the first Lunar Rover, the $13 million Moon buggy that allowed Scott and Irwin to travel 18 miles across the lunar highlands—farther than all previous Apollo astronauts combined. The Rover transformed the mission into what Scott called "exploration at its greatest."
On this meticulously rehearsed and specifically scientific mission, Scott and Irwin explored some of the Moon's most rugged and treacherous terrain with the childlike glee of first-time tourists and the practiced eyes of trained geologists (LIFE, 20 August 1971, pp. 26-27)
"Vistas without parallel in human experience surrounded the crews on the great voyages of exploration."
—Apollo 17 astronaut Harrison Schmitt (NASA SP-250, p. 265)
Printed 1971.
Vintage chromogenic print on fibre-based Kodak paper [NASA image AS15-86-11603].
Numbered "NASA AS15-86-11603" in red in the top margin, with "A Kodak Paper" watermark on the reverse (issued by NASA Manned Spacecraft Centre, Houston, Texas).
20.3 x 25.4 cm. (8 x 10 in.)
Historical context
Exploration at its greatest.
This extraordinary photograph, taken by David Scott at the end of Apollo 15's first EVA, captures James Irwin and the Lunar Rover beneath Mount Hadley. In the foreground, the Lunar Module's shadow stretches across the surface, adding to the haunting beauty of this alien world.
Amidst the barren, majestic landscape of Hadley-Apennine, James Irwin tends to the first Lunar Rover, the $13 million Moon buggy that allowed Scott and Irwin to travel 18 miles across the lunar highlands—farther than all previous Apollo astronauts combined. The Rover transformed the mission into what Scott called "exploration at its greatest."
On this meticulously rehearsed and specifically scientific mission, Scott and Irwin explored some of the Moon's most rugged and treacherous terrain with the childlike glee of first-time tourists and the practiced eyes of trained geologists (LIFE, 20 August 1971, pp. 26-27)
"Vistas without parallel in human experience surrounded the crews on the great voyages of exploration."
—Apollo 17 astronaut Harrison Schmitt (NASA SP-250, p. 265)
Footnotes
Literature
LIFE, 20 August 1971, pp. 26-27
Space: A History of Space Exploration in Photographs, Chaikin, p. 120
Spacecam: Photographing the Final Frontier from Apollo to Hubble, Hope, p. 29