"A Journey Into Tomorrow" by David A. Hardy

A beautiful piece of art, inspiring the next generation of space explorers.

Found here; hat tip and many thanks to @terrazoom!

Some terrific Soviet space propaganda for your Tuesday. See the rest at DVICE.

You’ve probably figured out by now that I post as much science fiction and fictional spaceflight as I do “real” manned spaceflight. Give me space shuttle Discovery, the Saturn V, the Eagle, the White Star, the Heart of Gold, the Millennium Falcon — I love them all. I’m a big fan of the retro-future, the places we might have gone and the ships that might have taken us there. That they don’t yet exist gives me no less desire to dream that they might, in the future. Perhaps in my lifetime. Perhaps not. I admit, although I hadn’t necessarily expected tourist travel to the Moon by now, I thought at least somebody would be going there in person, from some country. Alas, earwax.

I read something the other day that keeps coming to mind, as one reason I believe we haven’t gotten further in the conquest of space (along with a lack of understanding as to what exploration means, and why we should be doing it.) It’s a thing called risk. Our culture views risk-taking as a positive thing, when it applies to financial or entrepreneurial ventures, but abhors it when it applies to life and limb.

Here is the quote, emphasis mine:

Not as famous as the Wright Brothers, after all, is Lt. Thomas Selfridge, the first man in history ever to die in a plane crash, but by no means the last. The conquest of the air filled graveyards with pilots. Great futures exact great prices. If we have not conquered space, it is perhaps because we are unwilling to fill our graveyards with the number of astronauts such an ambitious dream requires.
— The Big Idea: John C. Wright

The Mercury 7, being test pilots, knew full well the risks they were taking, and that sudden demise was a distinct possibility. They rode the rockets anyway, and if they died, they died in pursuit of something they believed in. Amazingly, none of the NASA astronauts died right off — in fact, nobody died for a while, which made the Apollo 1 fire all the more shocking. Challenger and Columbia, likewise, shocked and grieved the American public, and the world. However, looking back, it’s amazing we did what we did with the US space program with so little loss of life. How silly is it for us, as a culture, to expect to skip all the grisly bits and proceed straight to streamlined, trouble-free space travel? We emphasize and remember the major accidents (Apollo 1, Challenger and Columbia), and granted they were horrible, tragic events, but certainly people don’t make the same fuss over fatal plane crashes. Planes still crash, people still die — sometimes pilots, sometimes innocent passengers. I dare say, there is not the same public outcry toward the FAA as there is toward NASA when we lose astronauts.

Which is a long way of saying, I agree with the above quote. We are unwilling to pay the price*, and that is in part why we have not conquered space travel in the present, to the degree we expected sixty years ago. Heck, this isn’t the future we expected even thirty years ago. What happened to the weekly space shuttle launches?

So, what’s holding us back from our “rightful” place in the heavens? Our culture’s abhorrence of death? Failed leadership? Lack of vision? Money? Technological progress?

What are your thoughts? Please leave a comment below!

* And am I willing to pay that price, you might ask? Fair question — I don’t know. It’d depend on what sort of mission we’re talking about, and I’d have to think about it in any case. (Lunar mission? Maybe. LEO? Not so much.) I doubt many people have an instant answer as to whether or not they’d die for something. Choose your thing carefully.

Image courtesy of x-ray delta one @ Flickr

An intriguing illustration from 1970 shows a young boy (who reminds me ever so much of Ivan, the protagonist of The Humpbacked Horse), learning about the Earth and Moon. A Soviet rocket model stands in the foreground. Learn well, young Ivan!

What do you think? Is this a spaceship? Because it reminds me of a toy my little sister had as a baby… or maybe a cat toy. A hamster ball?

Let the dust jacket copy of this 1958 adventure convince you:

SPEED-AND MORE SPEED-go into the mammoth project of completing Tom Swift Jr.’s newest type of spaceship. It is a race against time and the stakes are high. First, Tom’s foreign enemies appear ready to launch a manned moon rocket of their own. Second, the young inventor’s friends on another planet propose a rendezvous in outer space, in the desperate hope that Tom and his scientist associates can help them conquer the unknown disease that threatens life on their planet.

From the first test flight to the day the Challenger roars moonward, Tom meets with frustrations and sinister perils, more challenging than he has ever encountered. In a neck-and-neck race with the enemy’s rocket ship, Tom’s fabulous invention, the super-repelatron, plays a dramatic part in heading off a crash landing on the bleak planet. One of the greatest thrills of the young space pioneer’s life comes when he guides the Challenger alongside his planet friends’ spaceship.

In this fast-moving, gripping drama of Tom’s double victory in outer space you will find all the exciting elements that have made the Tom Swift Jr. series the Number One choice of boys who thrill to mystery and adventure.
— TomSwift.info

Opinions? Please comment! Do you have a scan of a less-spaceship-y spaceship? Please share!

Apollo 8 Coming Home, by Robert T. McCall, 1969, oil on canvas. Courtesy of the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum.

This is one of my favorite Robert McCall paintings of the space program. The beautiful texture of the Moon, combined with the vibrant colors of the Apollo 8 capsule is just magnificent.

Human eyes directly observed the far side of the Moon for the first time on Christmas Eve 1968. Robert McCall imagines the sight of the rocket engine firing to propel the spacecraft out of lunar orbit for its return to Earth.

This work is on display at the National Air and Space Museum’s Mall building from May 28 to Oct. 9, 2011, as part of the NASA | Art: 50 Years of Exploration exhibition.
Copyright: Smithsonian Institution

Today is the 50th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin’s historic flight into orbit — the first human to orbit our planet. It’s also Yuri’s Night, a worldwide celebration of human spaceflight! Check out the link for a party near you!

Yuri Gagarin

It is ALSO the 30th anniversary of the first space shuttle flight; you can see beautiful white Columbia below, awaiting her first launch. (I had a poster of this when I was in high school; put it on my ceiling so I could stare at it before I went to sleep.)

Illustration by Virgil Finlay

I can’t resist posting one more fantastic illustration by Virgil Finlay, from The Complete Book of Space Travel by Albro Gaul, published in 1956. (First post is here.)

This is admittedly my favorite of the bunch. There’s tons of beautiful detail in this dynamic illustration. The combination of lightning bolts and concentric (dizzying) circles overlaying the pilot’s face makes for a disturbing scene. We don’t know what’s going on, but clearly it’s dangerous. Not exactly happy-fun-time for Mr. Astronaut!

Image courtesy of Golden Age Comic Book Stories, via Webomator Blog.

Submitted for your Tuesday approval, some fantastic illustrations by Virgil Finlay, from The Complete Book of Space Travel by Albro Gaul, published in 1956. (Images courtesy of Golden Age Comic Book Stories, via Webomator Blog.)

To think, I traveled all this way just to get my very own set of tiger claws!

Since this Complete Book shows astronauts to be handsome, dashing male specimens, naturally they require alien womens. ↓

Hey, never know what you might find out there!

I know, I know, I have a thing for Soviet retro-futurist art… but you have to admit, these Soviet illustrations are nothing short of stunning! (Info and images via Dark Roasted Blend.)

Karl Gilzin’s book ["Travel to Distant Worlds"] (from 1958) contained some pretty neat illustrations … [b]ut the illustrations got even better once this book was translated into Russian, and some nameless artist from DetGiz Publishing House in 1960 drew these inspiring scenes…

I couldn’t decide what planet I liked best, so here’s Saturn:

And here’s Mars: