First Trip to Our Moon

The first trip to our moon will be without landing, in a ship designed to travel in space only, taking off near the Space Station and returning to it. Here the round-the-moon ship is some 240,000 miles from earth, 50 miles above the lunar surface. The large crater is Aristillus (diameter 35 miles); the other crater is Autocylus; the distant mountains are the lunar Apennines.

painting by Chesley Bonestell
from Across the Space Frontier
edited by Cornelius Ryan
1952