Our Mission:

The Mission of Apollospace is to produce the most comprehensive, fully corrected, highest quality, and highest-resolution space program images and image collections available; to produce high-quality space exploration focused films and other media with high educational and entertainment value; and to offer collectors the finest in authentic astronaut autographed memorabilia and other space-related collectibles. Apollospace, LLC was formed as a New Mexico Limited Liability Company in 2016. Managing Member and principal owner, Jeremy Theoret, possesses nearly 30 years of experience buying, selling, and authenticating astronaut autographs and producing high quality NASA images. Apollospace.com was one of the first commercial websites exclusively devoted to selling astronaut autographs and space memorabilia, beginning in 1996.

The APOLLOSPACE Imaging Process:

Most of the raw public domain Apollo images (including all color images) used in creating the images found here were acquired by Arizona State University (ASU), pursuant to an Agreement with NASA’s Johnson Space Center (JSC) for scanning NASA’s collection of Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo imagery in the highest resolutions ever made available. Black and white images not yet available through ASU were acquired from the National Archives and/or NASA/JSC images sources. APOLLOSPACE acquired the raw images from ASU and converted them to ultra high-quality JPEGs, measuring 5000 x 5000 or 5200 x 5200 pixels in size at 300 dpi, in sizes of approximately 20-30 MB following compression. The black and white images from other sources generally measure 4000 x 4000 pixel at 300 dpi. We fully cropped, cleaned, and restored the images and have made them available here for browsing and downloading mission collections - the finest complete Apollo image collection available.

The borders of each image were cropped off. The image borders do not have uniform widths, and the images shift slightly during the scanning process, meaning the borders sizes vary. The APOLLOSPACE images are thus sized at either 5000 x 5000 or 5200 x 5200 pixels for consistency, depending upon the resulting size of the cropped image. The images were then corrected for tone, color, and contrast. One of the chief challenges in the raw scanned images is the lack of contrast, which results in the images having a ghostly fog. Among the observations of space by the astronauts themselves is how inky black space is. Thus, during processing, one of the main aims is to achieve as black a sky as possible without losing image details.

Because the images were shot at various exposures and lighting conditions, there is a wide contrast variation in the original scanned images. For aesthetic and other reasons, the images have been processed to reveal as much detail as possible. For example, images of the lunar surface from orbit with the sun directly overhead are overexposed and, lacking shadows, the surface lacks detail and appears flat. Such images have been processed to bring out the most detail possible, which generally results in them appearing much darker in comparison to other images but allows for better detail in crater rays.

The images were then blown up to their maximum resolution and cleaned of scratches, blemishes, dust, hair, scanning lines and other defects. It is not uncommon for a single image to require hundreds of corrective actions to clean the image of blemishes, faults, and defects. The end result are the cleanest Apollo-era images available anywhere, even at maximum resolution, without the distracting blemishes found in raw images and most corrected images available elsewhere. The images were further corrected and enhanced to provide clarity and consistency. Levels and colors are balanced to make viewing the images, individually and as part of a slide show, as seamless and pleasing as possible.

Album Naming Scheme:

All of our albums are first identified by the NASA Hasselblad magazine (film cartridge) number; then the restoring entity (APOLLOSPACE); followed by the pixel size of the images. For example, AS11-40S-APOLLOSPACE-5000 is film magazine 40S from the Apollo 11 mission, restored by APOLLOSPACE, and all images in that album measure 5000 pixels in size. Suitable for very large enlargements.

Ultimately, our goal is to have all the more than 19,000 Apollo-era photographs available fully restored. Thank you, Jeremy Theoret, APOLLOSPACE