1963 Army Map Service Pictorial Map of the Moon

This is a large-format 1963 Army Map Service pictorial map of the Moon. The map depicts the visible face of the Moon in striking detail, with the myriad craters and maria beautifully illustrated. Kepler and Copernicus, two craters in the Oceanus Pocellarum, are strikingly detailed. The lunar maria, or the lunar seas, as early astronomers believed them to be, are colored in such a way to make them appear to be bodies of water, when they are in fact large basaltic plains.

John F. Kennedy, the Space Race, and a Voyage to the Moon

By the end of 1963, the 'Space Race' between the United States and the Soviet Union had kicked up another notch, particularly after President John F. Kennedy challenged, not only NASA an the U.S. military, but the country as a whole, to reach the moon by the end of the decade. During a speech given at Rice University on September 12, 1962, Kennedy declared, 'We choose to go the Moon. We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.' Even though the Space Race had been going on for almost a decade by the time Kennedy made this pronouncement, this moment is pointed to as the catalyst for the American drive to the Moon. Hence, the creation of this map, with its incredible level of detail, may have been directly influenced by President Kennedy. In an intriguing and tragic coincidence, this map was published by the Army Map Service in November 1963, the same month that President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas.

Publication History and Census

This map was created and published by the Army Map Service in November 1963. It is well represented in institutional collections but scarce on the private market.