Charles J. Byrne's interest in the Moon began when he was recruited from Bell Telephone Laboratories to work for the Apollo Project as a member of Bellcomm, the system engineering contractor to NASA headquarters (1962 - 1967). His responsibility was finding potential landing sites on the Moon that were both safe and scientifically interesting. A special responsibility was establishing requirements for the Lunar Orbiter and guiding its missions to support Apollo.

As an interest in the Moon arose in recent years, Byrne combined his experience with Lunar Orbiter with his career at Bell Telephone Laboratories in information theory and programming to enhance the archival photographs. This led to the publication of two books of lunar photographs, one on the near side of the Moon and one on the far side of the Moon. As that work matured, he became interested in the remarkable differences between these two aspects and commenced research activity to find the cause of the difference. The answer is the Near Side Megabasin, the subject of this book.