The Art of NASA: The Illustrations That Sold the Missions

The Art of NASA: The Illustrations That Sold the Missions

FIRST COMES THE DREAM: How Art Showed the Way to Space

In the early years of the American rocket program, explanatory graphics distributed by civilian space agency NASA were primitive by today’s standards. The first press release depictions of the Mercury capsule, America’s first human-carrying spacecraft, were quite literally sketchy on details.

Wings of desire

Rolf Klep’s 1954 illustration for Collier’s magazine of a reusable spaceplane atop a rocket designed by Wernher von Braun.

THIS NEW OCEAN: The Dawn of the American Space Age

In 1954 many experts predicted that we would build orbital space stations and undertake lunar missions by the early 21st century. None of them imagined that the first humans would venture into space just seven years later.

The “Dan Dare” Dream

This promotional fantasy from the Boeing company was just one of many such visions presented throughout the 1950s by corporations keen to play a role in turning space fiction into scientific and technological fact.

ONE GIANT LEAP: The Voyages of Project Apollo

In 1972 the renowned futurist Arthur C. Clarke commented, “An age may come when Apollo is the only thing by which people remember the United States, or the world of their ancestors, the distant planet Earth.”

Never the two at once

Composed for the Apollo 13 mission of April 1970 and redistributed by NASA ahead of Apollo 14, Robert Watts’ depiction of astronauts setting off to explore the lunar terrain shows something we never see in the mission photographs: two moonwalkers in the same scene.

ISLANDS IN THE SKY: Inhabiting the Realm of Earth Orbit

As the first lunar landing era drew to a close, space planners retired the Saturn V and looked for a cheaper, reusable launch system that could provide regular access to space.

Toward the shuttle era

Davis Meltzer’s A Space Station, commissioned by National Geographic and featured in the August 1970 issue. This kind of image became the new baseline for visions of life in orbit, enabled by winged space shuttles.

BRAVE NEW WORLDS: Back to the Moon & Toward The Red Planet

Ever since the triumphant Apollo 11 lunar landing mission of 1969 both NASA and the United States as a whole have struggled to identify the next major goals for human space exploration. Today we may be getting close to finding the answers.

The lure of Mars

In this 2017 Lockheed Martin concept for NASA, a reusable single-stage Mars Ascent/Descent Vehicle (MADV) is seen during rendezvous and docking with a Mars Base Camp (MBC).

THE EXPANSE: Exploring Depths of Space Beyond Mars

What we know of the universe is the tiniest fraction of what’s out there. The fact that we understand any of it at all is a staggering achievement.

Through a long tail

British space artist Artist David Hardy’s 1996 impression for NASA and the European Space Agency ESA of the joint Ulysses spacecraft passing through the tail of comet Hyakutake.

Lost Scenes from Apollo

Gary Meyer’s mid-1960s scene of astronauts prior to insertion into a Command Module. Meyer created many illustrations for NASA, and Apollo manufacturers North American Aviation, but original versions are hard to find today.

Reunion in lunar orbit

Apollo 12 Command Module pilot Richard Gordon maneuvers Yankee Clipper for docking with Lunar Module Intrepid’s ascent stage, after the exploration of the lunar surface by fellow crewmen Alan Bean and Pete Conrad in this pre-flight painting. The view through the window was changed for later Apollo mission press releases.

Sending out a satellite

Apollo 16’s crew in their Command Module Casper, shortly after ejection of the “Particles and Fields Subsatellite,” visible out the port window in this NASA image. A 1968 Smithsonian Institution exhibit entitled Exploring Space: Paintings by John Desatoff displayed similar works by this artist.