After the moon landing, the idea of life in space became more enticing than ever for scientists and artists alike, inspiring work like this 1970 drawing for National Geographic. NASASHARE
Even rocket scientists have to get a little artsy. Motorbooks
Artists often think outside the box. But when you’re hired by NASA, you have to literally think outside of this world. Over the last sixty-or-so years, in addition to its unprecedented scientific discoveries, NASA has also published some striking art pieces that portray ideas that range from the sci-fi proposals of the 50s and 60s to artistic recreations of real space adventures of the modern era.
The Art of NASA, a new compilation of some of the most creative, funky, and celestial masterpieces ever to grace the desks of space explorers and scientists, is out this week. Here’s a sampling of the outrageous work.
An impressionistic and dramatic 1963 drawing of the Lunar Landing Research Vehicle which was used to train astronauts for the moon landing. Patrick ShortArtist Carl Zoschke captured this scene of an Apollo lunar module taking off in the 1960s, though with probably more flair and brilliant colors than was actually present at the time. Patrick ShortThe Skylab, launched in 1973, is still the largest spacecraft ever sent to space with just one rocket. This is an artist’s rendering of what was going on inside. NASAHere, an unknown artist depicts an Apollo command module’s fiery reentry to Earth’s atmosphere. NASA After the moon landing, the idea of life in space became more enticing than ever for scientists and artists alike, inspiring work like this 1970 drawing for National Geographic. NASAThis sketch of an orbiting space hotel was drawn to help conceptualize a space ship in the 1968 movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. NASA This is an artist’s depiction of the 2014 ATV from the European Space Agency that would become the main form of propulsion for NASA’s Orion spacecraft. Chris Calle/Family of Paul CalleA drama-filled illustration of the Ulysses spacecraft crashing through the tail of a comet. NASAIf the Galileo spacecraft had fully extended it’s main antenna while orbiting Jupiter (it ended up only partially opening up), this is what NASA artists think it would’ve looked like. NASALiving in space is still a pretty far-out idea, but Princeton University physics professor Gerard K. O’Neill thinks this could be what it would look like. With O-Neill’s ideas in mind, artist Rick Guidice whipped up a whole series of art depicting futuristic outer space life. NASAIn 2018, the Parker Solar Probe took super-close up images of the sun and forever changed what we know about space weather. This is one artist’s rendering of the probe hovering above the sun’s tumultuous surface. NASA
Correction: The headline was updated to include an accurate count of illustrations, which is 11 not 10.
Sara Kiley Watson is a News Editor at Popular Science, where she has led sustainability coverage since 2021. She started her tenure at PopSci as an intern in 2017 before joining the team full time as an Editorial Assistant in 2019. Contact the author here.
