How should fifty-year-old photos feel? On one hand, as a kid, I felt like we'd just been to the moon "a few years ago" and it didn't even seem all that daunting or novel. On the other hand, even though it doesn't feel like it, it's been a while since I was a kid, and we've not landed folks on the moon in my lifetime.

So even though it still seems like a routine NASA mission in my mind, it's really something that happened in the past ... long ago ... not repeated during the past forty-plus years.

It is with that in mind that I approach the newly organized pictures by NASA, all high-res images taken during the Apollo missions. They're photos taken by astronauts in the middle of doing a very demanding job of exploring the unexplored. They're adventure shots of the highest order, and the composition suffers as a result, which underscores the difficulty of obtaining them in the first place.

Viewing these photos in big batches like this does an excellent job of telling the story if you red between the frames. It's not Hollywood showing you space (unless you're a "Kubrick conspiracy" type) ... it's reality, with all its flaws and awkwardness. As a result, it's possible to relate better to them and appreciate the rare perspective that was captured during the Apollo missions.