It was important to make sure Aldrin's vision was clearly captured. And Aldrin, Minor said, was directly involved in what he wanted to say and how he wanted to say it. "Buzz would say, 'This is on the right track, we need to change this, let's focus on this.' It was, in all manner of speaking, a collaborative effort using Buzz's incredible expertise as a former astronaut and also as a man who has a doctorate degree in aeronautics from MIT — he's really a rocket scientist by definition."

The kind of collaboration and research done on both books takes time. "The longest part is always the research," Wimmer said. "All together it was a two- to 21/2-year process, of which painting took six or eight months."

It took about two years to complete "Look to the Stars" as well. "Children's books look simple," Minor said. "But it's like the tip of the iceberg. Doing a children's book is really very difficult in terms of getting down to the essence of what you want to say in a very short space. Most picture books are 32 pages; we expanded our book to 40. … It's one of those projects where you flip through the book and say, 'That's pretty easy,' but it took two years to do that."

Minor and Wimmer see their books as a way to help children learn about the past and hope they will help youths imagine the future.

When Minor talks to schoolchildren, he always asks the question, Do you believe in Martians? "They all kind of look skeptical and most of them say, 'Of course we don't believe in Martians,' " he said. "And I say, 'Well, you know what, there may be a Martian in this room.' They look at me like 'What's wrong with this guy?' and I say, 'One day, one of you, one of your generation may be the first to walk on Mars. That would make you a Martian, wouldn't it?' "

"Man has always dreamed of going to the moon," Wimmer said. "It just took a progression of steps. First we had to learn how to fly, then we had to learn how to control flight. … Just 42 years after (Charles Lindbergh's) flight from New York to Paris, we were walking on the moon. In 42 years that's incredible."

"Imagine this," Minor said. "Coming around the back side of the moon and looking back at our planet — this beautiful blue and white orb against the blackest black you've ever seen and you begin to realize that there are no borders, there are no separations of people, that humanity is on this little blue ball in this vastness of infinity. Bill Anders took that first photograph (of the Earth) on Apollo 8 in 1968 and that has forever changed how we look at the planet that we live on. … The more people who in the future are able to do that will be profoundly changed on how we view the Earth."

E-mail: jharrison@desnews.com