In 1966 Norman Rockwell really needed a spacesuit — and NASA didn’t want to give him one. The space agency had hired the artist to visualize the Moon landing long before it would actually happen. To do that Rockwell needed to know what the astronauts would be wearing. He needed details. For him, telling the big story meant looking at the subtle facets that compose the whole. However, with the intense secrecy surrounding the mission, the answer to his request kept coming back the same. Denied.

For Rockwell, who was used to laboring over a painting for weeks or months with life models, working with NASA was a unique challenge. The agency would send him constant updates as the plans and designs of the lunar module changed and were updated, giving the painter—accustomed to creating with physical reference in front of him—a massive headache.

The man who eventually brokered the deal that got Rockwell his spacesuit was the director of NASA’s Art Program, James Dean. “I had [NASA’s first Chief of the Astronaut Office] Deke Slayton mad at me on one side and Norman Rockwell aggravated at me on the other,” he said. The suit was delivered to Rockwell’s studio, on the condition that it be returned every day and brought back again the next with its own technician and babysitter.

On January 10, 1967, over two years before Neil Armstrong first put his footprint in moondust, Look magazine published Rockwell’s painting. In it, a small spacecraft sits in the blasted landing area, with gray moon rocks in the foreground. From the small weathered capsule, bearing the flag of the United States, two figures emerge. One carries a handheld video camera, the other has one foot raised, his heel making first contact with an alien surface. This was the American public’s first glimpse of what would eventually become an incredible reality.

“Man on the Moon,” 1967. Image credit: Norman Rockwell/NASA

Rockwell could sell magazines — one of his covers would increase the circulation of The Saturday Evening Post tenfold. His “Four Freedoms” paintings toured the country in the 1940s and reportedly raised $132,992,539 in war bonds, while “The Problem We All Live With” brought the civil rights struggle into the homes of millions. If you were looking to spark the imagination of Americans and make them believe that a man could walk on the Moon, then Rockwell was the man you needed.

The collaboration between NASA and artists stretches right back to the start of the space program. It was founded on the back of a 1962 memo drafted by administrator James Webb, in which he suggested they use artists to bring a new perspective to NASA’s space program, and a more subjective view to its story.

“Important events can be interpreted by artists to give a unique insight into significant aspects of our history-making advances into space,” the memo read. “An artistic record of this nation’s program of space exploration will have great value for future generations and may make a significant contribution to the history of American art.”