Celebrating 50th anniversary of NASA putting a man on the moon

BY CHARLES APPLE

Late last year, the Houston Chronicle eliminated my position as deputy design director, which threw me out of work — the third time this has happened to me. The funny thing, though: This didn’t leave the Chronicle with many resources to build its ambitious project for 2019: A celebration of the 50th anniversary of NASA putting a man on the moon. For those of you who don’t live in the U.S.: The country’s manned space agency is based in Houston. So the Chronicle is going all-out for this series. It is working on interactives, videos, podcasts… and an 11-piece series — not counting minor pieces in between — to run every-other-week between now and the actual anniversary in July.

So what did the Chronicle do? It hired me to work on the print graphics for this series.

Editors at the Chronicle asked me back in November. We had conversations via phone and email throughout December and January. Once I saw their budget of stories, I pitched a number of graphics that could accompany those stories. Their project team looked over my list, made a few changes and gave me the OK to begin work. I draw the graphics in Adobe Illustrator with some occasional Adobe Photoshop work. When I’m done, I save the graphics in PDF format and upload them to my FTP server. They download the graphics, print them out for editing and proofreading and insert them into their page design system. It helps that I know their system and their staff so well: I had worked at the Chronicle for three years. I’ve been trying to stay about a month ahead of when they need the print graphics. If they wish to build interactive versions of what I’m doing, this would give them plenty of time.

Part One of the large series began on March 10. Part Two will run on the 24th. For each part, we’re planning a timeline showing how the major events of that day’s installment fit into the history of NASA — to give context to that installment.

Much of Part One focused on President John F. Kennedy’s pledge to put an American on the moon before the end of the decade. I chose to start my timeline with the first satellite in space — the Soviet probe Sputnik in 1957 — and run through the end of the Mercury space program in 1963. The timeline runs across the bottom of two facing pages. There are also lists and alternative story forms to help remind those of us who don’t have all this history from a half-century ago. In this case, the story says JFK’s pledge resulted in an entire moon landing program. I dusted off a graphic I drew nearly 15 years ago, updated it and used it to remind readers that NASA made six successful moon landings over three-and-a-half years. I show how each mission spent more and more time on the lunar surface. For most installments, there will be a big graphic that shows readers some complex scientific concept.

For Part One, I chose to make a sidebar that showed the key concept that actually allowed NASA to meet Kennedy’s pledge: Instead of launching a huge rocket that would fly to the moon and back, NASA ended up building little pieces called “modules” that could be connected and disconnected — kind of like Lego building blocks. Only the piece that needed to land on the moon would land on the moon. The other pieces could stay in lunar orbit. More importantly, the pieces could be discarded and left behind after they were used. This saved fuel and money. This was a radical idea when Kennedy made his pledge in 1962. One young NASA engineer did the math and found out that getting to the moon and back would be prohibitively costly and difficult. His discard-as-you-go method — called Lunar Orbit Rendezvous — was opposed by NASA administrators and engineers. But he showed them his math, convinced them he was right and ended up being the unsung hero of NASA’s moon effort. I researched and wrote this graphic, intending it to be as simple as possible.

What I aim for: I want my wife to understand it. She’s a school teacher, so she’s able to grasp difficult concepts. But she is disinterested in technical jargon. I am to explain a process to her in a way that won’t put her to sleep. I’m rather hoping I did that with my Part One graphics. Sunday’s Part Two will focus on how Houston was picked to be the location of the manned spacecraft center in the mid 1960s. I’ll have another timeline — showing the selection process and how the center grew — plus a map showing all the other NASA centers around the country. The large piece will be an aerial photo of the Johnson Space Center, pointing out the major buildings. Guests can visit the facility, but not all buildings are on the official tour.