France, Aug. 27 -- Martin-Malburet keeps his precious photo collection in 50 acid-free boxes, protected by plastic film. They're stacked away from the light on a shelf in his Paris living room.

The pictures trace 11 years of Nasa's race to the Moon, from 1961 to 1972. They include the US space agency's Mercury, Gemini and Apollo missions, all painstakingly catalogued.

He carefully takes the "Apollo 11" box, documenting the first mission to put humans on the Moon in July 1969, and selects the picture that kicked off his collection.

"In this image, we see Buzz Aldrin in his spacesuit on the lunar surface. In the reflection of his visor, we can see Neil Armstrong taking the photograph. It's a bit like the Mona Lisa of the Moon," Martin-Ma...