In this expanded collector’s edition of The Art of NASA, complete with a paper model Lunar Module and a poster, explore over 200 stunning artworks commissioned by NASA to sell its missions.Formed in 1958, NASA has long maintained a department of visual artists to depict the concepts and technologies created in humankind’s quest to explore the final frontier. Culled from a carefully chosen reserve of approximately 3,000 files deep in the NASA archives, the
200+ awe-inspiring illustrations presented in this special boxed edition are complemented by:
- 32 pages of new material
- A paper model of the Lunar Module
- A rolled poster
- A sheet of four postcards
- A new foreword by astronaut Tom Jones
From space suits to capsules, from landing modules to the Space Shuttle, the International Space Station, and more recent concepts for space planes,
The Art of NASA presents
60 years of American space exploration in an unprecedented fashion. All the landmark early missions are represented in detail—
Gemini, Mercury, Apollo—as are post-Space Race accomplishments, like the
mission to Mars and other deep-space explorations.
The insightful text relates the
wonderful stories associated with the art. For instance, the incredibly rare early Apollo illustrations show how Apollo
might have looked if the landing module had never been developed. Black-and-white Gemini drawings illustrate how the massive NASA art department did its stuff with ink pen and rubdown Letraset textures. Cross-sections of the Apollo–Soyuz Test Project docking adapter reveal Russian sensitivity about US “male” probes “penetrating” their spacecraft, thus the androgynous “adapter” now used universally in space. International Space Station cutaways show how
huge the original plan was, but also what was retained.
Every picture in
The Art of NASA tells a special story. This collection of the rarest of the rare is not only
a unique view of NASA history—it’s a fascinating look at the art of illustration and
a glimpse of NASA history like no other.
