| | | THE COVER STORY | | The story behind TIME's 'Back to the Moon' cover | | | BY SAM JACOBS
Editor in Chief, TIME |
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| At TIME, we're lucky to work with colleagues who know their stuff. Chief among them is Editor at Large Jeffrey Kluger, who has been writing about space and the race to the moon through decades of reporting and 13 books, including one which became the legendary film Apollo 13. | In 2019, Editor in Chief Edward Felsenthal wrote about how TIME's earlier coverage of space inspired a young Kluger to first dream of the stars. | For this issue of Inside TIME, I asked our Creative Director D.W. Pine to write about the making of this week's cover and how it fits into TIME's colorful history covering space exploration. | –Sam | READ THE STORY » | | A painting years in the making | | BY D.W. PINE
Creative Director, TIME |
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| In early February, if all goes as planned, the Artemis II astronauts will need only about four days to reach the vicinity of the moon. Ironically, publishing our cover illustration to mark this historic moment took more than 100 times longer. | The cover image of Artemis astronauts Jeremy Hansen, Victor Glover, Reid Wiseman, and Christina Koch by artist Jason Seiler was first commissioned in late November 2023 to illustrate a "look ahead" to the initial expected launch date in the fall of 2024. Once NASA pushed back the launch, the final image was saved in a "Futures" folder with the hope that it would someday be seen by TIME's audience. | "Of all the paintings I've created for TIME, this remains one of my personal favorites, so I was incredibly excited to learn it would finally be released," says Seiler, who has three TIME Person of the Year cover paintings to his credit (2013 Pope Francis, 2020 Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, and this year's Architects of AI). | "The original concept placed the moon slightly out of focus in the background, but as the painting developed, I realized just how monumental it would feel behind the astronauts," adds Seiler, who spent two weeks digitally painting the 18x25 inch image directly on a display using traditional painting techniques. "At that point, I decided to render it in high resolution, painting every crater and surface detail I could, and I'm very glad I did." | | TIME has a rich history of commissioning illustrations for important events in space, dating back to the first appearance of space on our Dec. 8, 1952 cover. The illustration of an outsized humanoid spaceship was imagined by artist Boris Artzybasheff, who produced more than 300 TIME covers in the 1940s, 50s, and 60s. | TIME returned to space in 1968 with a famous illustration by renowned New York artist Robert Grossman, whose airbrush painting depicted an American and Soviet astronaut racing to reach the moon. Grossman's career spanned more than 50 years, featuring works on more than 500 publications, and coincidentally included another flying machine—he painted the logo for the movie Airplane. In 2019, TIME paid homage to his iconic cover with an illustration by Italian artist Alessandro Gottardo that depicted another race, this one involving billionaires and private companies creating their own space missions. | | Painter Hector Garrido painted the 1969 Man of the Year cover of Apollo 8 astronauts Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, and William Anders, the only astronauts ever recognized as such by TIME. Coincidentally, one of history's most powerful photographs was taken by Anders on Christmas Eve 1968—a moment of serendipity when Earth appeared behind the moon. But since TIME needed to publish before Apollo 8 returned back to Earth two days later, Garrido's acrylic and tempera portrait illustrated the men of the year. ("Earthrise" was named by TIME as one of the 100 Most Important Photographs of All-Time and helps to illustrate this week's cover story.) | In fact, timing (or lack thereof) seems to be a hallmark of TIME's space covers. On July 20, 1969, when astronaut Neil Armstrong stepped on the moon and proclaimed "that's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind," TIME was in the midst of closing an issue. Since the famous photographs of fellow astronaut Buzz Aldrin were still in the camera of Aldrin (they didn't return until four days later), TIME ran an acrylic painting of Armstrong holding an American flag on the moon by artist Louis S. Glanzman. Glanzman had been an illustrator for the Air Force magazine in the 1940s before transitioning to a children's book illustrator (he created the look for the popular Pippi Longstocking). His now-famous moon painting for TIME resides in the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery. | | What I've been reading this week | | | | | | | |
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