Exploring the intersection of spaceflight history, pop culture, and space art.

As we roll into the gift giving season, Creating Space presents a game that many 1960s-era space-enthused kids might have flipped to see under their holiday trees. I invite you to have a ball exploring the Marx Big Dial Blast Off Pinball game from 1968!

Are you new to Creating Space? It’s the NERDSletter that explores the intersection of spaceflight history, pop culture, and space art. You can find this and all other posts at creating-space.art.

Game of the Month

There are many ways in which one can make a connection to history in daily life. For instance, no matter your age, there are countless books and online resources available to feed your appetite for historical knowledge. Museums, of course, specialize in preserving knowledge and artifacts from the past in many subject areas. Certain genres of art capture historical times, objects, and events. You may have collections in your own home (or know someone who does) that include toys, games, models, or other collectibles that derive their inspiration from history.

Marx Big Dial Blast Off Pinball

Thus is the case with the Marx Big Dial Blast Off Pinball game. Its theme is set squarely in its time of 1968, and extends into its own past by a decade or so. What was then a showcase of contemporary Cold War missiles, spacecraft and aircraft, now has become an object of historical interest of times gone by.

The not-so-subtle mention of the phrase, Blast Off, on the box gives just a hint at the treasure of space vehicle illustrations to be discovered inside.

The playing field draws your attention with a blue sky filled with missiles from the Cold War era. We’ll take a closer look at each one in due time.

The score board, or “Score-O-Meter”, is topped with a working red flashing light (batteries not included) and, as the game’s name makes obvious, a big dial to track your score.

The second-hand-sized needle indicates your ever increasing score as it sweeps clockwise, tracing an orbit around the central globe. Your prime target, identified innocently enough only as “Asia” (but, we know what they really mean) is aligned prominently in your sights. Thank goodness so many of the fathers and mothers of the generation of kids who played this game decided to focus their sights – and missile launches – on the Moon, and not our own fragile planet.

When put together and played, with its overall form, sights, and sounds, the game becomes a close approximation to actual arcade pinball games.

Here’s a short video demonstrating the game in action.

Flipping the Script

Marx sometimes re-themed their toys to capture a wider variety of interests. On the off chance that you were not a fan of Cold War missiles (not you, of course), Marx had you covered with several theme variations based on similar pinball platforms.

The Interceptor let you imagine piloting a variety of U.S. Air Force fighter jets and a helicopter. If gambling was your thing, there was a casino-themed version for you to try your luck with. If you would rather bet on the horses, the Sweepstakes gave you an opportunity to win, place, or show. If betting while floating down the waterways of America was more your thing, the Riverboat promised to take you there. And, there was a version simply called Electric Pinball that had an authentic-looking vintage simulated wooden playing field.

The practice of re-theming toys was not limited to pinball games. Marx used this tactic on their Carry-All line of miniature playsets. As with the pinball games, the common architecture of the Carry-Alls was able to play multiple roles with minor alterations to the design and the included contents.

Here’s a case where the branding was updated to put more emphasis on NASA’s 1960s lunar landing goal, and to tie in more closely with their Johhny Apollo action figure line of toys.

Plunging into the Details

Let’s take a tour around the playing field of the Big Dial Blast Off pinball game to see what one of the chrome balls might see as it is shot into this space.

The ball is set into motion by the spring-loaded plunger. Launching up the shooter lane, it enters the first turn, following the broad arc at the top of the playing field. It speeds by the first of the spacecraft illustrations – a Mercury capsule joined to its launch escape tower. If this looks odd to you, it may be because this configuration (without a booster beneath it) was only ever used once during a so-called Beach Abort test of the Launch Escape System in July 1959.

In the event of an actual mission emergency, the escape tower would fire its solid rocket motor and pull the capsule away from the ill-fated launch vehicle. The tower would then be jettisoned just after the escape rockets cut off and a recovery parachute would deploy, bringing the capsule and its contents to a safe landing.

Project Mercury was NASA’s first manned spaceflight test program which ran from 1958 through 1963. In total, six men were launched in Mercury capsules – the first two on top of modified Redstone missiles sent on suborbital trajectories, and the following four send into Earth orbit on Atlas missiles. Prior to the human-crewed flights, the Mercury-Redstone system was tested with a brave (though not likely fully informed) chimpanzee named Ham.

The following cutaway diagram shows the layout of the Mercury capsule and its launch escape tower.

Returning to our pinball’s mission, after speeding by the Mercury capsule, the ball strikes a small red passive bumper and catches a quick glimpse of a Titan II intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) soaring skyward.

The Titan II was a 1959 upgrade to the U.S. Air Force’s two-stage Titan I ICBM. It was the last liquid-fueled intercontinental ballistic missile built by the United States. It was in service between 1963 and 1987.1 A derivative of this missile was used for NASA’s Gemini program between 1964 and 1966. Ten crewed missions were flown, each carrying two astronauts. The program tested and proved a number of technologies, procedures, and capabilities that were essential to the success of the follow-on Apollo lunar missions.

Now, back on the pinball playing field, immediately after impacting the bumper, our Steely-eyed Missile ball reverses course and – given enough speed – arcs back across the top of the board and is stopped from falling back down the launching chute by a thin strip of spring metal. It is here that a recovery parachute is seen with an unidentified rocket suspended beneath it. The identity of this object is a mystery to me, but given the Cold War theme of the game as context, one might guess it could represent an early concept for a film container from a space-borne reconnaissance satellite. If that is the case, it may be likely the illustrator employed some artistic license – perhaps to fill in gaps in knowledge due to a lack of access to possibly sensitive reference material.

Going with the spy satellite theory, here is an example of how film canisters were recovered in mid-air after deployment from their orbiting host satellites. This particular photograph shows a practice run of a JC-130B catching a simulated film-return capsule.

Our intrepid chrome sphere is sent back into the playing field, and after bouncing off an active bumper or two – marking the start of the scoring with a reassuring ding-ding – the ball encounters a Hound Dog missile.

North American Aviation’s AGM-28 Hound Dog was a supersonic, turbojet-propelled, nuclear armed, air-launched cruise missile developed in 1959.2 The Hound Dog was Strategic Air Command’s (SAC) first air-launched missile. One was carried under each wing of the B-52G Stratofortress. Their mission was to attack and destroy enemy air defenses, such as fighter aircraft bases, communication centers, and anti-aircraft missile batteries thus clearing the way for the bomber to more successfully strike its target.3

If the proverbial winds are in the right direction, our pinball may next meet with a Thor intermediate range ballistic missile (IRBM) seemingly headed off in the same direction as the target of the Hound Dog.

The Air Force initiated development of the Thor in 1954 as a tactical missile that could deliver a nuclear warhead up to 2,300 miles (3,700 km) from a launch site. Douglas Aircraft Corp. was awarded the prime contract for the airframe and integration of components. The first test flight was Jan. 25, 1957.4 It was deployed in the United Kingdom between 1959 and September 1963 as an intermediate-range ballistic missile with thermonuclear warheads.5

Passing through a gauntlet of bumpers, the ball now enters the center of the playing field where it is met by a newly launched Polaris missile. This is your chance to boost the ball back into the upper altitudes using the big red flipper – if you can get it past the three pairs of bumpers forming an overhead defense shield.

Polaris was a two-stage ballistic missile powered by solid-fuel rocket motors and controlled by a self-contained inertial guidance system. It was designed to be launched from a submerged submarine. On July 20, 1960, Polaris became the first ballistic missile to be launched from a submarine under water.6

I remember the first time I saw a Polaris missile in person. It was during one of my early childhood visits to the Smithsonian. Taking its place prominently in front of a row of three other rockets and missiles outside the Arts and Industries Building was one of the early models of the Polaris A-1. The other rockets were, from left to right, Jupiter-C with replica Explorer 1 satellite, Vanguard, and Atlas B. An Atlas comes up next in our pinball tour ...

If you are lucky with the big red flipper, you may send the ball past the nuclear warhead of an Atlas intercontinental ballistic missile. If you get a good bounce, the ball may stay in play.

The SM-65 Atlas was the first operational intercontinental ballistic missile developed by the United States and the first member of the Atlas rocket family. It was built for the U.S. Air Force by the Convair Division of General Dynamics.7 When not used as a nuclear threat, Atlas-derived launch vehicles were later used to loft four of NASA’s manned Mercury Program missions in the early 1960s, and employed in the Gemini Program for sending Agena docking targets into Earth orbit. Several unmanned exploratory lunar and interplanetary probes were launched with Atlas-Agena configurations.

If your flipper skills fail you, the ball may find itself in the unfortunate position of encountering a Bomarc missile. Once there, the chances of recovery virtually disappear as there is nowhere left to go but downward.

The Boeing Bomarc (named by combining Boeing with the Michigan Aeronautical Research Center, which contributed to the project) was a supersonic ramjet powered long-range surface-to-air missile (SAM) used during the Cold War for the air defense of North America.8

Fun Fact: I used to work in a building named after a planned Bomarc site in the Pacific Northwest.

As the silver ball hits bottom, it risks being intercepted by an F-106 Delta Dart.

The F-106 Delta Dart was a supersonic, all-weather delta wing interceptor aircraft of the United States Air Force from the 1960s through 1988. It was manufactured by the Convair Division of General Dynamics. Its mission was to shoot down other aircraft – Soviet bombers in particular. The F-106 was the last dedicated interceptor in the U.S. Air Force.9

I clearly recall seeing this jet, with its distinctive delta-wing planform, soaring over Dulles Airport at the first air show I remember going to as a young boy.

Narrowly avoiding interception by the Delta Dart after its perilous mission, our fearless pinball returns to the hopper, with the help of a manually-operated spinning paddle wheel, to play another round.

Merch of the Month

Celestial Sphere Metal Print

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I'm Dave Ginsberg, the artist behind Pixel Planet Pictures and writer of Creating Space.

I am an artist and a creative engineer with a love for teaching and passions for spaceflight, astronomy, and science. My space-inspired art portfolio can be found at pixel-planet-pictures.com.

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Exploring the intersection of spaceflight history, pop culture, and space art.

Strap in for the exciting continuation of my previous post and join me for not one, but, two factory tours on the grounds of the Kennedy Space Center – Blue Origin’s New Glenn manufacturing facility and Sierra Space’s Dream Chaser processing facility. Along the way, we’ll see an amazing collection of historical space artifacts and contractor models.

Are you new to Creating Space? It’s the NERDSletter that explores the intersection of spaceflight history, pop culture, and space art. You can find this and all other posts at creating-space.art.

Touring Blue Origin and Sierra Space

In the previous edition of Creating Space, I teased about the special tour I went on during this year’s Astronaut Scholarship Foundation’s (ASF) U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame weekend events in Cocoa Beach, Florida. When I attended last year, we toured the SpaceX Falcon 9 refurbishing facility, which was a spectacular experience. This year topped that, providing double the fun. We were treated to not one, but, two factory tours of so-called ‘New Space’ companies with facilities on the grounds of the Kennedy Space Center – Blue Origin and Sierra Space.

As I mentioned last time, the tour organizers keep the day’s planned location a secret until just before the bus departs. Initially, we were informed of only the first of our destinations, with no indication that there would be a second.

Here’s a photo I shared last time showing our tour group in the bus with all our happy faces after we learned we would be touring the Blue Origin New Glenn rocket manufacturing facility.

Blue Origin Tour

As we approached the Blue Origin facility, just south of the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex, the immensity of their operation became apparent. We passed one massive blue and white factory building and pulled up to a second, equally large, building.

Blue Origin’s Florida operations cover 250 acres – a site those at the company refer to as “Rocket Park”.

The area taken up by Rocket Park is over three times the land area occupied by the entire Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex, including its parking lots and the Apollo Saturn V Center building. Just to drive this home, the Visitor Complex encompasses 70 acres1 and houses the Space Shuttle Atlantis pavilion, a rocket garden with a Saturn IB and seven other rockets, the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame® and Heroes & Legends pavilion, the Gateway “new” spacecraft pavilion, back-to-back twin IMAX theaters, several other attraction buildings, a substantial gift shop, a large tour bus loading/unloading area ... and, in the Saturn V Center, an entire Saturn V rocket plus a Command and Service Module, the Apollo 14 Command Module, a full size Lunar Module (LM), a Lunar Rover mockup, and more!

Making A Big Entrance

Inside the Blue Origin factory building, photos were restricted to the front entrance lobby. But, what a lobby it was!

The first thing that struck me when I entered the Blue Origin lobby was a towering full-scale mockup of their Blue Moon Mark 1 (MK1) autonomous cargo transport and lunar lander. Its height reached close to two factory-sized stories, comparing it to the adjacent exposed stairwell.

Elsewhere in the vast lobby, were monuments to Blue Origin’s other signature projects. A giant poster of their latest and largest rocket, New Glenn, adorned one of the walls.

Nearby, a scale model of New Glenn stood like a sentry at the entrance.

A pair of rocket engines, a BE-3U and BE-4, also designed and built by Blue Origin, were proudly displayed against a wall emblazoned with a quote (unattributed, but presumably from Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos), “It’s this generation’s job to build a road to space”.

Fly Me to the Moon

Being an Apollo Lunar Module fanatic, it was a special treat to see Blue Origin’s next-generation lunar lander mockup. Even though the MK1 is meant to deliver cargo rather than people to the Moon, it wasn’t a stretch for me to equate the experience of seeing this mockup to the early days of Apollo. I imagined it might have been like witnessing, in person, Grumman’s Lunar Module mockup at their Bethpage, New York, facility in the early 1960s.

The design aesthetic of the MK1 contrasts sharply – or maybe I should say smoothly – with that of the Apollo Lunar Module (LM), the last crewed Moon lander, so far to date. As opposed to the angular appearance of the Apollo LM, the contours are mostly curves. The only angles found on the MK1 are the cutouts for the main propellant tanks, and at the top of the vehicle – reminiscent of the Apollo LM Descent stage’s octagonal form. The capsule-shaped tanks, mounted externally, dominate the lower half of the body – which, itself, is covered in gold foil hearkening, again, back to Apollo. The upper half of the vehicle is cylindrical and sports a clean white coating. Additional tanks – for purposes unbeknownst to me, perhaps RCS propellant – hang, covered in gold foil, supported by struts near the top of the lander.

The MK1, being an uncrewed cargo transport, has no windows. Instead, where one would expect windows to be, there is a painted gold feather, which is the symbol Blue Origin has chosen to represent the perfection of flight. The name of the company, itself, represents the “Blue Earth as our beginning point of the venture into space”, according to our tour guide.

According to Wikipedia, the MK1 reaches 26.4 ft (8.05 m) in height, and its diameter is 10.1 ft (3.08 m). Comparing this with the Apollo Lunar Module, the LM was close to 23 ft (7 m) tall including the rendezvous radar antenna. So, the MK1 is slightly taller than the LM.

Here’s a photo with some former Shuttle astronauts for scale.

This diagram shown during the Spring 2025 Lunar Surface Innovation Consortium provides a good reference for the relative sizes of the Apollo LM, Blue Origin’s MK1 and the planned crew-carrying MK2 reported to stand 50.2 ft (15.3 m) in height.

(NOTE: This diagram states the height of the MK2 as 50.2 ft (15.3 m). Other, more recent sources report the MK2 as standing 52 feet (16 m) tall.)

And, in case you were wondering how these compare to SpaceX’s lunar Starship HLS (Human Landing System) proposal, this diagram from 2023 shows its size next to the crew-carrying MK2 from Blue Origin.

As of this writing, there is talk on the web about a possible shrunken version of SpaceX’s monster, but from what I have seen it may still be comparatively tall vs. the height of the MK2.

A Tipping Point

If you will allow me to editorialize for a moment, Blue Origin’s cargo lander, the MK1, seems like a reasonable evolution from the Apollo Lunar Module. Its size is quite comparable. The MK2 appears to stretch the technology, approximately doubling in height relative to the MK1.

Even so, I would note that the landing leg span on both the MK1 and MK2 seem somewhat narrow, given their respective vehicle’s heights.

It seems to me that a fair proportion of the recent uncrewed lunar landing attempts have resulted in vehicles tipping over. Either today’s engineers haven’t studied up on the Apollo Lunar Module, with its wide landing base – which would be difficult for me to believe – or they may be relying on newer, more precise, automated flight controls or some kind of active system for maintaining an upright position. Either way, it appears odd to my Apollo-trained eyes and I can’t help but think there may be some lessons to be learned from history. Of course, the propensity for a vehicle to tip over is primarily driven by the location of its center of mass, which is something I can only guess at from the images and the single mockup I have seen.

I broached the subject with former Space Shuttle astronaut, Rex Walheim, who was present in the Blue Origin lobby, but he didn’t seem eager to indulge my curiosity. Top secret intel, perhaps?

If the Blue Origin landers raise questions about tipping over, SpaceX’s Starship HLS (Human Landing System) lander is downright questionable, in my opinion. Granted, SpaceX has deservedly gained a reputation for turning the previously-thought impossible into routine achievements. But, standing at 172 ft (52.4 m) tall, it baffles me as to how they intend to land their 17-story-tall rocket on the rocky uneven surface of the Moon without it toppling over.

Unless they land it sideways on purpose ...

There is historical precedence for such an idea. During the nascent days of the Apollo program development, mission designers were debating the relative merits of two different lunar landing approaches – Direct Ascent and Lunar Orbit Rendezvous. Each one carried unique requirements for the landing vehicle design.

The Direct Ascent mode would have the entire Command and Service Module stack landing tail-first. To accommodate such a landing, an additional landing stage would be added to the bottom, aft of the Service Module. It would contain engines to control the final descent and deployable legs for landing.2

All these stages added up to a very tall – and very massive – structure. You can see in this photograph of the model NASA’s Joe Shea is holding during a 1962 news conference that they recognized the need for a very wide landing footprint – and thus very heavy landing gear.

What is perhaps less well known is that NASA had considered landing the vehicle on its side, rather than tail-first. This image shows what a sideways landing might look like, compared with a tail-first landing.3

How then, you may ask, did they intend to ascend off of the Moon when it was time to return home? This illustration by Roy Scarfo, part of a series of illustrations created in 1962 for the New York Times Magazine, shows the return capsule launching almost horizontally from the main landing section.

A Model Display

In addition to the full-scale MK1 mockup and other items in the lobby, there were three unassuming, yet very interesting, climate-monitored display cases tucked under the stairwell behind the MK1 mockup. The average visitor to the Blue Origin factory might easily miss them. I almost overlooked them, myself.

I’m very glad I spotted them, because these were no ordinary displays. They were filled with priceless artifacts and models from the early space age. Given the quality of the items – some of which I recall seeing in past auction catalogs – I think it is safe to assume they are part of the collection of Jeff Bezos, himself.

The first display case contained hardware from various space programs. Jeff is well known for, among other things, his love of the Apollo program. He famously led an expedition that found and recovered, from the Atlantic sea floor, two of the Saturn V first stage F-1 engines use to propel Apollo 11 the first 42 miles (67.6 km) on its historic journey to the Moon.

A few of the noteworthy items in this case include a 1962 engineering drop test model of the Apollo Command Module (CM), a full-scale test article of the Lunar Module (LM) Descent stage Landing Leg Deployment Truss Side Brace45, an Apollo Service Module Reaction Control System thruster presented to Max Faget, an Apollo LM Descent engine fuel flow control valve flight spare, and a Saturn V engine duct restraint mount.

Here is a close-up of the LM leg brace and the CM drop test model.

For reference, this diagram shows the installed location of the LM Landing Leg Deployment Truss Side Brace.

The second display case was dedicated to contractor models. Once again, there were some extraordinary items inside.

The first model that caught my eye looks, at first glance, to be a model of one of the Apollo lunar mission configurations. There it is, tucked behind the large Lockheed Martin X-33 model and a couple of X-15s.

It is actually a set of models displaying concepts proposed for the follow-on Apollo Applications Program (AAP). Readers of Creating Space likely are familiar with Skylab, which was the only flown manifestation of the AAP. This model shows several other ideas for using hardware from the Apollo lunar landing program to extend NASA’s capabilities and perform additional scientific research in space.

The 17-inch (43 cm) tall, 1:48 scale, model is beautifully constructed out of various colors of acrylic with a clear shell which reveals its interior components. In addition to the Lunar Module (LM), the set includes two components that can be swapped out to take the LM’s place inside its housing. One is a combination “LEM Truck Payload and Mission Module”, as it is labeled in red letters typical of models made by the Marshall Space Flight Center Graphic Engineering and Model Studies Branch. The other interchangeable component is identified simply as a “Rack”, presumably containing scientific payloads for use in orbit around either the Earth or the Moon.

I first saw photos of this model when it was up for sale in Bonhams’ 2009 space auction.

I have longed to include it in my own collection ever since. I won’t reveal the exact selling price, but if you add three zeros to the mission number of one of the Apollo lunar landing flights you will be in the ballpark. I didn’t place a bid on this one at the time. But, if you put yourself in a position to bid against Jeff Bezos, would you really have any chance?

That said, it was a thrill to be able to admire the model up close.

If you are a fan of early Space Shuttle concepts, as I am, a notable space plane model in this case will be of interest. The gray model on the blue base is a proposed Trimese concept for a Space Shuttle by General Dynamics and Convair. Originating in 1967, this three-part vehicle combination would boost the central piloted orbiter into Earth orbit. The outer two boosters, also piloted, would separate and extend their swing-wings and be flown back using deployable air-breathing turbofan engines to simultaneous runway landings.

The third, and final, display case contained a mix of contractor models and space-related headgear. A NASA workman’s helmet and an Apollo pressure suit helmet sit in opposite corners of the case. Models of three different space stations fill the middle. And, three contractor models occupy the remaining two corners of the space.

The contractor models are worth a closer look. In one corner is a Marshall Space Flight Center model of a Space Plane cluster consisting of three identical reusable integrated transporters, as defined on the base’s nameplate. This one sold at auction in 2012 for a small number ... followed by a handful of zeros.

On the opposite side of the case sit two other unique contractor models. The tall cylindrical one is a prototype of – I’m guessing – a rocket stage propulsion system. I’m afraid I didn’t quite capture the description on the adjacent label.

The other contractor model is another one I had seen offered at an earlier auction, and in my view is one of the more interesting concepts represented in the trio of display cases.

Here is a clearer photo of the model. According to the auction description, it is an early proposal by Maxime Faget for reusing the Space Shuttle booster engines. In this case, the four main booster engines would be positioned, at launch, aft of the external fuel and oxidizer tanks.

Instead of integrating the main engines into the Orbiter, it appears that a single orbital maneuvering engine was tucked into its aft end. Two additional engines, presumably air-breathing recovery jet engines, are positioned externally on each side of the Orbiter body. As described, the four main engines could be swung into position behind the aft engine compartment of the Orbiter once in Earth orbit. They would remain there through the mission and be brought back for reuse. The description also mentions that the main engines could be jettisoned in case of an abort situation.

The included engineering diagram affixed to the inside of the box lid indicates that the Orbiter and its fuel tank would have been stacked on top of a booster stage, unlike the eventual operational configuration which used a pair of side-mounted solid rocket boosters. An example of such a configuration studied during the development stages of the Space Shuttle is seen in this 1972 diagram of the so-called MSC-040A Orbiter and fly-back booster.

New Glenn Factory Tour

As if the Blue Origin factory lobby didn’t offer enough to capture my imagination, the tour of the actual New Glenn manufacturing facility would prove to be mind-blowing. I’ll get to the tour in a moment, but it is first worth looking at the wide extent to which the company has committed itself to the new space economy.

Blue Origin has several space projects going at the present time. Their New Shepard has been taking people on vertical hops to get brief peeks at the Earth and sky from the edge of the atmosphere since 2019.

New Glenn is their near-Apollo-Saturn-V sized two-stage heavy lift rocket. It stands 321 feet (98 m) tall and is powered by seven reusable BE-4 engines each capable of generating 550,000 lbf (2,450 kN) thrust at sea level6 for a total of 3,850,000 lbf (17,126 kN). The first stage is designed to be recoverable, and they indeed succeeded in safely landing one of their first stages on their second flight, at the time of this writing.

Blue Moon is their entry for landing NASA’s Artemis crew and cargo on the Moon.

Blue Ring is a sort of space tug which is capable of maneuvering, hosting, and deploying spacecraft destined for Earth orbit, the Moon, and interplanetary distances.7

Orbital Reef will be a low Earth orbit space station described on their website as being “architected as a mixed-use business park 250 miles above Earth.” I can say with certainty that I wouldn’t get any useful work done if I had a window seat in that office.

In addition to the headliner projects listed, Blue Origin also offers a wide array of other space solutions including robotics, rovers, instruments, and various spacecraft components.

The two main efforts located at the Kennedy Space Center location are New Glenn and Blue Moon. As much as I would have liked to see the manufacturing facility for the lunar lander, this day’s tour was limited to the New Glenn factory.

Now, on to the tour.

Unfortunately, no photos were permitted inside the actual factory area. Here are a couple photos of the factory interior that have been shared by some major industry and enthusiast publications.

This is an overhead view of the New Glenn first stage booster. The business end – the one with the seven reusable BE-4 engines – is on the far end (right side) in this photo. Four all-flying fins are positioned at the top of the stage (left side of photo), and two long strakes protrude from the base of the booster. Together, they are intended to give the returning reusable stage a degree of cross-range capability.

Here as an overall view of the factory floor. My impressions when first entering the factory, and while walking around, were that it was a very bright and clean environment, and the sound level was relatively subdued compared with my experience in other aircraft factories I have been in.

Tim Dodd (The Everyday Astronaut) posted a video walk-through of the factory last year. His tour guide was Jeff Bezos, himself. This will give you a far better sense of the factory and its contents and processes than I could do through words, alone.

Chasing Dreams

Following our visit to Blue Origin, we were treated to a surprise bonus tour to see Sierra Space’s Dream Chaser, Tenacity – a reusable lifting body vehicle with short folding wings and a low aspect ratio all-flying vertical fin.

I am a big fan of winged spacecraft. Ever since the Space Shuttle stopped flying in 2011, I have felt that we lost a unique, practical, and beautiful mode of space transportation.

The basic airframe of the Dream Chaser can be configured for either crewed transport or cargo. If I understood our guide correctly, both configurations can use the same life support provisions, enabling it to support either human crew or cargo requiring a climate-controlled environment, including live payloads.

A supplementary cargo module can attach to the aft end of the return vehicle, and can be accessed by the crew through a hatch. When berthed to a space station, the module provides a normal cabin environment for astronauts. The supplementary module, referred to by Sierra Space as the Shooting Star module, can be used for cargo disposal since it is designed to burn up safely in the Earth’s atmosphere as Dream Chaser glides gently back onto a runway.8

Development of Dream Chaser began in 2004 as a project of SpaceDev, which was acquired by Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC) in 2008. In 2021, the program was transferred to Sierra Space, a subsidiary spun off from SNC as an independent company.9

Sierra Space (then Sierra Nevada Corporation) was one of five private companies that were initially awarded development funds from NASA’s Commercial Crew Program in 2010. Later, in 2016, the company was awarded a contract for cargo transport under the Commercial Resupply Services program.

Dream Chaser’s operations are located on the grounds of the Kennedy Space Center inside the Space Systems Processing Facility, which used to be called the Space Station Processing Facility when it was primarily used to support International Space Station operations.

As was the case at Blue Origin, we were not permitted to take photos within the facility. These images published on Sierra Space’s website will provide a peek into what we saw. The spacecraft was located at one end of a long high bay at the back of the building. It sat atop a platform surrounded by support scaffolding, access walkways and stairways, and tooling.

The spacecraft was barely recognizable given the many items obscuring the view and the fact that many of the exterior access panels were removed, revealing much of the interior structure, various tanks, electrical wiring, and other equipment.

The Shooting Star cargo module – itself an impressive and substantially large assembly – was located in a separate high bay.

This cutaway, taken from a SNC video, gives a good sense of how much cargo can be carried and how it might be allocated between the return vehicle and the Shooting Star cargo module.

The Dream Chaser is not an original design, by the way. It is most directly derived from NASA’s HL-20 Personnel Launch System studies in the 1980s and 1990s. The HL-20 was, in turn, modeled from the Soviet Union’s BOR-4 experimental spaceplane, which itself was a one-half scale prototype of the Spiral VTHL (vertical takeoff, horizontal landing) spaceplane.10111213

Other experimental or proposed lifting body spaceplane concepts that can be considered higher up in the Dream Chaser’s family tree include ...

... the X-20 Dyna-Soar (”Dynamic Soarer”), a U.S. Air Force program that spanned from 1957 to 196314 ...

... the Northrop M2-F2 lifting body based on studies at NASA’s Ames and Langley research centers and built by the Northrop Corporation in 196615 ...

... the Northrop M2-F3 lifting body rebuilt from the Northrop M2-F2 after it crashed at the Dryden Flight Research Center in 196716 ...

... the 1966 Northrop HL-10 lifting body research aircraft17 ...

... the Martin X-24A (1969) and X-24B (1973)18 ...

... and the 1966 Martin X-23 PRIME (Precision Reentry Including Maneuvering reEntry) lifting-body re-entry test vehicle.19

So, while Dream Chaser development has been ongoing for over the past twenty years, its roots extend back into the 1950s. Sierra Space has been making progress, recently, towards a projected launch to low Earth orbit in the last quarter of 2026.20 Let’s hope that projection comes true.

Merch of the Month

The Way It Was Imagined: 1962 LEM Giclée Print

This depiction of one of the first concepts for a lunar lander, designed by engineers at NASA’s Langley Research Center in 1962, is a nod to the early Apollo program and the illustrators of that time.

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I'm Dave Ginsberg, the artist behind Pixel Planet Pictures and writer of Creating Space.

I am an artist and a creative engineer with a love for teaching and passions for spaceflight, astronomy, and science. My space-inspired art portfolio can be found at pixel-planet-pictures.com.

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Exploring the intersection of spaceflight history, pop culture, and space art.

This edition of Creating Space covers the 2025 Astronaut Scholarship Foundation’s U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame celebration, held in May, including the space art show I participated in.

Are you new to Creating Space? It’s the NERDSletter that explores the intersection of spaceflight history, pop culture, and space art. You can find this and all other posts at creating-space.art.

Astronaut Scholarship Foundation’s U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame Weekend

This year’s Astronaut Scholarship Foundation U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame celebration events were held in Cocoa Beach, Florida, over three days (May 29 through May 31). They proved to be even more enjoyable than last year’s which were also held in Cocoa Beach. Echoing last year’s events, the weekend was packed full of talks by astronauts and students, factory tours, and “table-centered” events (book signing, meals, gala) – more than enough to satisfy even the most enthusiastic Space Geeks.

The events were organized by the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation (ASF), a non-profit organization that has, for the past forty-one years, provided scholarships to the brightest and most talented college students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.1 I am proud to be able to support the ASF in their educational mission. A portion of my art sales proceeds go directly to the ASF organization.

Once again this year, in conjunction with the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame Induction, the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation hosted its Space Rendezvous which included astronaut talks, panel discussions, parties and receptions in celebration of all things space exploration, capping the three days off with a fundraising gala dinner at the Kennedy Space Center’s Saturn V Center. This year the ASF continued the Space Art show which I was very happy to be a part of for the third year.

Day Zero – The Donor Reception

The festivities kicked off a day early with a mix and mingle party for ASF donors. ASF president and CEO, Caroline Schumacher, hosted the evening. This would be her last event with the ASF, after serving in her roles for six years. The special guest of the night was astronaut Rick Mastracchio, a veteran of four space flights. He shared stories about his flights and gave all the attendees patches depicting several of his missions. It was fun to get to know many of the approximately two dozen event attendees, and a special treat to have some casual one-on-one time with Rick. This would be just the first of many astronaut encounters during the event.

Day One – The Universal Tour

The first official day of the event was reserved for holders of the highest-level ticket – the Universe ticket. A special day-long tour was the reward for buying such a pass. As I learned last year, the destination and details of the day are kept a secret until just before departure. But, judging from last year, when we toured the SpaceX Falcon 9 refurbishing facility, I knew it would be something special.

I had seen that Victor Glover was on the list of astronauts scheduled to attend the multi-day event. He, along with three other crewmates, are slated to travel to the Moon and back on the Artemis II mission currently scheduled for early next year. My hope was that the special tour might consist of a “Glover-guided tour” of his SLS rocket inside the massive Vehicle Assembly Building.

I would soon find out that I was incorrect in my hopeful prediction, but certainly not to be disappointed. We were informed after we boarded the bus that we would be touring the Blue Origin New Glenn rocket manufacturing facility. Isn’t it amazing that there is so much going on at the Kennedy Space Center that you can’t be certain what special behind-the-scenes tour you’ll get to go on!?

As I have a lot to share about our special tour – more than enough to fill at least another article – I will leave you in suspense until my next post. For now, I will share this photo of our tour group in the bus showing all our happy faces after we learned what treasures the day would hold.

Day Two – Astronaut Encounters, Space Talks, Book Signing, Space Art Reception

One of the best aspects of attending the ASF Astronaut Hall of Fame weekend are the many random encounters with astronauts that can happen, a feature that I am certain is designed into the gathering by the organizers. One remarkable example of this occurred at breakfast on Friday morning. I was sitting at a table with Burt Dicht, current Director of membership for the National Space Society, and another couple, and we were joined by former astronaut – and one of the weekend’s inductees to the Astronaut Hall of Fame – Bernard Harris. Then, who should walk over and sit down but Skylab astronaut, Joe Kerwin, with his daughter and his niece! Joe was there to moderate one of the astronaut panel discussions later that day.

After breakfast, I had a quick one-on-one elevator ride with former astronaut and NASA administrator during the Obama years, Charlie Bolden. Charlie was incredibly quick with his answer to my question about his favorite part of his career. With a big smile, “The people!”, he said, even before I finished asking the question.

The morning events kicked off with a talk by astronaut Michael López-Alegría. He spoke about Axiom Space and their planned space station. Coincidentally, former NASA astronaut and current Axiom astronaut, Peggy Whitson, was in pre-flight quarantine with her crew for the Axiom 4 mission to the International Space Station at the time. She would be the second of the weekend’s inductees to the Astronaut Hall of Fame.

As was the case at last year’s ASF event, attendees were gifted a signed book written by one of the astronauts. This year’s astronaut-author was Cady Coleman.

Following the book signing was a panel discussion on the topic of spacewalks. Skylab astronaut, Joe Kerwin, served as the moderator for the panel. He was joined by former astronauts, Jerry Ross, Bernard Harris, and Joe Tanner.

During the provided lunch buffet, the random astronaut encounters continued with Kathy Thornton and Fred Gregory. Also joining us at the table was respected space historian and collector, Larry McGlynn. Larry is incredibly knowledgeable and enthusiastic about collecting space memorabilia and artifacts. During the return bus ride from the previous day’s tour, he shared with me the story of a Snoopy-themed watch he was wearing. It was a real treat to be able to hold this substantially-weighty object for a few moments.

The afternoon talks kicked off with the International Cooperation in Space panel. Moderated by Bob Cabana, the panel consisted of Michael López-Alegría, Norman Thagard, Bob Crippen, and Julie Payette.

The second panel of the afternoon gave some of the Astronaut Scholars a chance to speak about their experiences and areas of study. Participating on the panel were Cooper Jacobus, Harrison Blake-Goszyk, Will Jarvis, Sarai Rankin, Sarah Stamer, Catherine Millwater, Sasha Gladkova, and Larry Bradley (moderator).

Space Art Reception

The art show was a main highlight of the weekend for me for several reasons. Of course, it is always a special time and a privilege to be able to share my space-inspired artwork with fellow space enthusiasts and professionals. To exhibit alongside renowned space artist Chris Calle, with whom I have now shared the ASF venue three times, is indeed an honor. Fellow space artist Lee Wilson was there, as well, this year. And, making his debut at the event was Astronaut Scholar and astrophotographer, Will Jarvis. Astronaut and artist Nicole Stott, who displayed her artwork at the 2024 event and was scheduled to appear again this year, was unfortunately unable to attend.

The reception was well-attended and interest was so great that it ran much longer than the originally-scheduled hour-and-a-half. I had some great conversations with a number of the attendees. Jessica Carr, daughter of Skylab astronaut Gerald Carr, became an instant fan of my artwork. She was an absolute hoot to talk with and her enthusiasm was over the Moon. She and Tom Stafford’s daughter, Dionne, both loved my Bubble LEM rendering and each ended up purchasing one for their collections. Dionne even got one for her son, as well.

The most unexpected encounter of the evening was meeting former Air Force fighter pilot and sculptor, Ed Dwight. You may be familiar with the name through the National Geographic documentary called The Space Race. Ed holds a very unique position in spaceflight history. He was chosen in 1961 by President John F. Kennedy to train as an experimental test pilot in preparation to become the first African American astronaut. But sadly, history (and the U.S. government) turned out not to be quite ready for that kind of social change in the early 1960s. So, he was prevented from following his dream by the prejudices of the time.

Fast forward to our modern times when billionaires seem to be flying more rockets than governments. Ed finally rose into the space above our atmosphere on a Blue Origin New Shepard rocket in 2024. For his full story, it is worth watching the 2023 documentary about his life and experiences.

Toward the end of the art reception, I noticed Ed talking with some people standing not too far from me. My gaze must have caught his eye because he turned my way. I nodded in acknowledgement and gave him a wave. He came right over to talk to me. He led off by joking that his eyesight was so bad that he thought I was a statue at first! Not surprising, I suppose, coming from someone who now creates sculptures of human figures every day. That kicked off a wonderful conversation about art with a man most noted for his aviation experiences.

Ed volunteered some advice on how best to showcase my artwork, and shared his own experiences exhibiting and selling his sculptures. He was very interested in seeing my artwork, and since his eyesight has deteriorated, his son (I believe that’s who it was) acted as interpreter, describing each piece in great detail as Ed got in close to each image. For me, hearing the verbal interpretations of my own works from another person – and seeing Ed’s reactions – was a very special experience.

Being an engineer and an artist, myself, it was incredible to speak with Ed and share our experiences being creative artists. In retrospect, it is interesting to me that the topic was entirely about art. I don’t recall anything said about his aviation career.

Here’s a photo of the two of us. (Ed is the one small enough to fit comfortably inside a Mercury space capsule.)

This engaging interaction and lively conversation went on for perhaps twenty or thirty minutes – well past the end of the reception. Then, we were joined by former astronaut and ASF Board member Leland Melvin. Leland, who was also featured in The Space Race, is very passionate about art and its relationship to engineering and science – and their combined roles in education. I wish I had a recording of these conversations with both Ed and Leland, because they were nothing short of mind-blowing.

At one point, Leland noticed that my Space Shuttle illustration, called Double Boosted, featured the Atlantis orbiter. That happens to be the spacecraft that Leland flew on each of his two space missions. He was so excited by this – and loved the artwork so much – that he decided to buy it!

The photo of Ed Dwight and myself was taken by Leland. This one of myself and Leland, with Double Boosted, was taken by Ed Dwight.

I can now count four space fliers as owners of my artwork – Anousheh Ansari, Linda Godwin, Nicole Stott, and now Leland. Add to those Jessica Carr and Dionne Stafford and her son, mentioned before, as offspring of astronauts who now also have my artwork in their homes.

A French-Canadian Connection

There is one more story I would like to share with you. In 1999, I witnessed my first Space Shuttle launch. The mission was STS-96. Among the seven-member crew was Canadian Space Agency’s Julie Payette embarking on her first trip to space. It was a picture-perfect launch of Discovery. As the exhaust plume rose up through the Earth’s predawn shadow, it entered sunrise a few thousand feet above ground level. The rocket entered the sunlight just after crossing through a thin layer of clouds. As the Shuttle continued to ascend, the exhaust plume cast a long shadow onto the cloud layer, painting a dark line across the sky extending as far as I could see to the west. It was a spectacular sight that I remember to this day.

After the early morning launch, my father and I went out for breakfast at one of the restaurants along North Atlantic Avenue in Cocoa Beach. Ahead of us in line were a group of people speaking French. Knowing that Julie Payette had just launched aboard the Shuttle, I guessed they may be relatives or friends of hers. Digging up some of my old high school French class vocabulary, I approached and asked, “parlez vous Anglais?” (Do you speak English?). They did, and sure enough they turned out to be family members of Julie’s who had witnessed that morning’s launch.

I had been curious about Julie’s personal patch that she wore on her flight suit. I did my best to make clear to her family my questions about the patch, but I guess something was lost in translation. My curiosity about that patch was never completely satisfied.

Well, as it happened, I was finally able to ask Julie, herself, about the patch over a quarter century later. There is something that happens when you hit upon a passionate subject with someone. My question about Julie’s personal patch ignited a spark within her like you rarely see in people. She proceeded to pull up the image of her patch on her phone and walk me through all of the symbolism as well as how she worked with the artist who created it.

Again, I wish I had recorded her description. Julie went through each of the individual elements, describing their significance and what they meant to her. Short of having a word-for-word transcript of her description to me, here is a paragraph translated from an Italian website that tells a small part of the story.2

“The Payette Badge was created by Canadian artist Gérard Dansereau. It depicts a red rocket traveling through blue space, from Earth to the stars, carrying within it a star, a musical note, a crescent moon, and a rose, while a blue cat strolls on the outside of the fuselage. The predominant colors are gold, red, silver, and blue. The rocket represents Payette, carrying with it her ideals and her loves, but also the human race’s ability to transcend its limitations.”

Then, without hesitation after describing her personal space mission patch, Julie pulled up another image from her phone. This time, it was the Coat of Arms associated with her time as the Governor General of Canada from 2017 to 2021. Once again, her eyes lit up as she went through each element of the design – which has some of the same references displayed in her personal patch.

Here is an infographic from the website of the Governor General of Canada that identifies some of the main elements and their symbolism.

This year’s experience at the ASF Astronaut Hall of Fame Induction weekend was by far the most gratifying for me. From the factory tours to the personal interactions, and because of the most successful art show I have had so far, the trip will stay in my memory for a very long time.

Coming ‘Round the Mountain

One of the joys of flying out of Seattle is that sometimes the pilot uses Mount Rainier as a racing pylon. Here’s the view out my window as the plane left the Pacific Northwest on the way to Florida. This was by far the best view of what people here call “The Mountain” I have ever had.

Merch of the Month

Double Boosted Giclée Print

Relive the thrill of watching the Space Shuttle launch every day with this high-quality wall art in your home or office.

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Your purchase from Pixel Planet Pictures helps support and promote space-related STEAM organizations and initiatives that enable and inspire students and youth to learn, develop, and pursue passions in science, technology, engineering, arts, and math.

I'm Dave Ginsberg, the artist behind Pixel Planet Pictures and writer of Creating Space.

I am an artist and a creative engineer with a love for teaching and passions for spaceflight, astronomy, and science. My space-inspired art portfolio can be found at pixel-planet-pictures.com.

Do you know fellow Space Geeks who might enjoy Creating Space? Invite them into this space, too!

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Exploring the intersection of spaceflight history, pop culture, and space art.

In this edition of Creating Space, I set the Wayback Machine to 1975 when I made the first of many trips to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Are you new to Creating Space? It’s the NERDSletter that explores the intersection of spaceflight history, pop culture, and space art. You can find this and all other posts at creating-space.art.

Set the Wayback Machine to 1975

Fifty years ago this month, as of this writing, I made my first trip to the Kennedy Space Center (KSC). It would not be my last.

In the summer of 1975, I was fifteen years old, and I had just completed my freshman year of high school. Long hair for men, winged hairdos for women, and bell-bottom pants for everyone were in. And NASA was basking in the successes of their first fourteen years of human spaceflight.

Being a young teenager, I of course did not make the trip to Florida alone. I was along for the ride on one of my family’s traditional educational vacations along the east coast of the United States. When we weren’t spending leisure time at the beaches of Maryland and Delaware, our instructional destinations included Plymouth Rock in Massachusetts to see where the Pilgrims landed; Jamestown, Virginia to see how early Virginia settlers had lived; Colonial Williamsburg to learn how our country got its start; Hershey, Pennsylvania and the chocolate factory; Corning, New York and the glass factory; Kitty Hawk, North Carolina to see where the Wright Brothers first flew; Niagara Falls, and the New York World’s Fair.

All of those trips were fascinating to me, and if my parents’ goals were to feed my curiosity and ignite my interest in history, I would say they succeeded greatly.

My father was interested in aviation and spaceflight, among other things. He worked as a civilian for the U.S. Air Force as an illustrator for most of his career. I picked up his interests through the aerospace-related magazines and books he would bring home and the air shows we would attend. And, since I had followed NASA’s space program from the first moments I had become aware of the Apollo missions, I was already primed for our trip to the Kennedy Space Center to see the place where all those rockets had launched.

The trip, itself, was novel in my experience in that we drove south from Virginia to Florida but took the Auto Train back home. The car went along for the ride on the return trip tucked away inside one of the train cars. Apparently, Amtrak still operates this unusual service. I think the way my parents chose to take the trip makes a lot of sense. Once you have driven 900 miles (1,450 km) to your destination, and seen all the sights and tourist traps along the way, you just want somebody to take you home without having to drive past all the same places again.

Pics or it Didn’t Happen

The Kennedy Space Center’s Visitor Information Center had opened in 1967, supplementing self-guided automobile tours of the NASA facilities which had been available since 1963 and bus tours that had begun in 1966.

The KSC Visitor Information Center at that time consisted of two connected buildings containing about a half a dozen capsules, mockups, and models, and a handful of rockets and spacecraft mockups outside. There were two auditoriums for films and lectures, a snack bar, and a gift shop. It also served as the departure point for the NASA bus tours.1 It was very small compared to today’s sprawling complex, but there was more than enough to keep me enthralled for an entire day.

If you want a preview of my trip before I share my photos, I highly recommend you watch this 1974 promotional film produced by the State of Florida. I distinctly remember those white cone-shaped listening phones that told you about the exhibits (timestamps 4:21 and 4:31). Imagine getting to ride with an “astronaut” on a lunar rover (timestamp 6:19)! (When I was there, it was parked inside the building.) And, be sure to stop by the gift shop on your way out and load up on Saturn V models if there are any left after the kid shown at timestamp 7:31 gets his hands on them! (He’s going to make a killing on eBay in a few decades!)

Video: “Kennedy Space Center Visitor Information Center (1974)”, Space SPAN (Space Policy and News)

I have a select number of core memories of our visit to the Kennedy Space Center. In today’s world of mobile phones with their digital cameras, I might have been able to take hundreds of photos. But, this was the age of physical film, and the rolls came with only twelve, twenty-four, or thirty-six shots each. As a kid with no job and no allowance, I had to take pictures sparingly. Mom, Dad, and I all had cameras of varying levels of sophistication with us on the trip. I am fortunate to still have all of our slides and negatives. Between the three of us, we took close to five dozen photos – with many repeating subjects. I will share the best of the bunch.

Here is a picture of me with my mom outside the entrance. Below the sign on the left with the floor plan you can see the U.S. bicentennial logo with its red, white, and blue bordered star. Places all across the country were gearing up to celebrate the nation’s two-hundredth birthday. The Kennedy Space Center was no exception.

I recall entering the Visitor Information Center and my dad navigating through the throngs of people to get to the tour ticket booth. Look at the ticket prices. Adults could go on the bus tour for $2.50, youths (ages 12 to 18) ride for $1.25, children (ages 3 to 11) fifty cents, and kids under three ride for free. I think access to the visitor center, itself may have been free at the time. Compare those prices with the admission ticket costs, today. As of this writing, a single adult ticket (which now includes the youth bracket seen in the photo) is priced at $77, and children ages 3 to 11 get in for $67! True, prices have increased – astronomically, you might say – but you are given access to the entire complex (which has grown significantly since the 1970s) as well as a bus tour of the NASA facilities.

As luck (or good planning) would have it, our arrival coincided with the launch of Viking 1 on August 20, 1975. Thinking back on this, now, I realize that was the likely cause for the crowds that day. If you have ever been at the visitor center on the day of a scheduled Space Shuttle launch, you know what it was like.

Judging by the sequence of the slides and negatives I have, we had only a small amount of time to look around before Viking 1’s scheduled launch time.

Here is the demonstration Lunar Rover Vehicle mockup that you may have seen in the video (above) giving kids rides.

I believe this may be the same rover that – if you were in the right place at the right time – you might catch a glimpse of a real live astronaut using for lunar extravehicular training at the Cape.

The Visitor Information Center displayed a row of flown space capsules beginning with Mercury, then Gemini, and finally Apollo. I don’t know which Mercury mission that capsule was used for. According to a souvenir booklet I have from 1978, the Gemini capsule is likely from Gemini 9 crewed by Thomas Stafford and Eugene Cernan. The Apollo Command Module is identified by the sign that can be read in the photo as that used for the famous Apollo 13 mission. That’s me standing at the hatch opening. (Houston, we have a fashion problem.)

After our quick look at the exhibits, we headed outside to get in position to see the Viking launch. Here is a photo my dad took in the rocket garden. From left to right is a Jupiter-C with a mockup of Explorer 1, America’s first successful satellite; an example of the Apollo Command and Service Modules atop a Spacecraft Lunar Module Adapter (SLA); and a Gemini mockup sitting on a Titan II missile. Just visible on the extreme left edge of the photo is seen a sliver of a F-1 rocket engine built for use on the first stage of the Saturn V. Out of view was a Juno II booster.

Let’s Light This Candle!

Viking 1’s launch was scheduled for 5:22 PM Eastern Daylight Time. At the expected time we saw the bright rocket exhaust plume rise above a line of nearby trees followed immediately by its smoke trail. Launch Complex 41, from which Viking lifted off, is about 7.3 miles (11.75 km) northeast of the Visitor Information Center. I remember initially hearing no sound from the rocket, only the oohs and aahs and camera clicking from the crowd. As the rocket rose higher, my hands began shaking from the excitement of seeing my first launch. I had trouble keeping my camera steady.

My dad had better control over his camera, which was a far better piece of equipment than mine. Here is a sequence of his shots of the launch of Viking 1 on its Titan IIIE-Centaur rocket. It was a fairly overcast day, so the show was brief, lasting only until the rocket entered the low cloud deck. This is how I remember it, albeit smaller through my camera’s tiny viewfinder. I couldn’t make out the rocket, itself. All I saw was the bright rocket exhaust plume and the smoke trailing behind it. But, wow, was it a thrill to see my first launch!

This is what the Viking launch looked like up close, courtesy of NASA’s professional photographers.

Just less than one year later, on July 1, 1976, while Viking was in orbit around Mars, a signal was sent to Earth that triggered a replica of the Viking lander’s robotic arm, taken from an engineering model, to cut the ribbon during the opening of the new Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C.

Michael Collins, Gemini and Apollo astronaut, was the director of the museum from 1971 to 1978, including the years during and after its planning and construction. He can be seen standing next to President Gerald Ford in the photo.

Up Up and Away TWA

After experiencing the spectacle of the Viking 1 launch, we boarded our tour bus to see some of the history-making NASA facilities.

Since 1966, the NASA bus tours had been operated by Trans World Airlines (TWA) of air travel fame. Before that time, beginning in 1963, self-guided driving tours were available.2

TWA really knew how to sell you on taking a bus ride. If the prospect of seeing a Saturn V rocket on the launch pad wasn’t incentive enough, maybe a lovely tour guide could entice you.

I was able to roughly retrace our tour route by referencing the order of photographs and pinpointing key landmarks and road characteristics. Here is a map you can follow along with.

The first stop was the blockhouse at Launch Complex 37. LC-37, as it is known, consisted of two launch pads – LC-37A and LC-37B. It was built between 1959 and 1963 and was then the second site intended to launch the early Saturn rocket, together with LC-34. Its original purpose was to be the launch site for the Apollo approach to reaching the Moon known as Earth Orbit Rendezvous (EOR). As it was first envisioned, Saturn C-3 would launch both the trans-lunar injection stage and the Lunar Excursion Module from the two pads, while the crew would lift off from LC-34 and intercept the two payloads in low Earth orbit.3

Ultimately, EOR was scrapped in favor of Lunar Orbit Rendezvous (LOR) which employed a single Saturn V to launch all of the necessary components for a lunar landing and return to Earth. The Saturn V was launched from Launch Complex 39.

LC-37B was the launch site for Saturn I test flights between January 1964 and July 1965. Saturn IB test flights were flown from the same pad in July 1966 and January 1968.4

In 1998, the United States Air Force and Boeing came into an agreement to use LC-37 for launching the Delta IV as part of the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle program. The complex was officially put into active service with the first launch of the Delta IV on November 20, 2002. In 2014, the site was used to launch Exploration Flight Test-1 for NASA's Orion spacecraft. The launch vehicle was a United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy rocket.5

Here are some photos of the blockhouse at LC-37 from our tour.

Compare this photo my mother took with the NASA archive photo (below) of Dr. George Mueller giving a Saturn V orientation to President John F. Kennedy and other officials in the blockhouse at Launch Complex 37. The perspective is very similar and it is easy to pick out the periscopes and certain control panels in each one.

The members of the Apollo brain trust in the first row are (L-R) George Low, Dr. Kurt Debus, Dr. Robert Seamans, James Webb, President Kennedy, Dr. Hugh Dryden, Dr. Wernher von Braun, General Leighten Davis, and Senator George Smathers.6 I likely had no idea at the time that I was walking on such hallowed ground. It gives me goosebumps just to see this photo and to think that I was there just twelve years after that historic meeting. I know I would get the same goosebumps if I were to visit again in person today.

This archival NASA video about LC-34, a twin to LC-37, is well worth a watch to appreciate the scale and complexity of the ground operations and facilities necessary to support a large rocket such as the Saturn I.

Video: “Saturn: Launch Complex 34”, NASA Launch Operations Center via Cape Canaveral Space Force Museum

American illustrator Fred Freeman created a highly detailed depiction of the interior of a Saturn blockhouse, first as a 1964 study sketch, and then as a finished painting in 1968.

Freeman is renowned for his brilliant technical cutaway illustrations done for the 1952-1954 Collier’s magazine series, Man Will Conquer Space Soon, on early developments and possible futures in space exploration, as well as his participation in the NASA Art Program.

From the time I first saw the original painting at the National Air and Space Museum in the mid-1970s, I have been enthralled by the detail, albeit roughly rendered, and especially fascinated by the self-referential depiction of the artist drawing the sketch for the very painting it exists in. There’s no other way to say it other than, “It really draws me in!”

Here is the sketch done as a study for the final painting, above.

After the tour of the blockhouse, we took the bus up the coast, passing by Launch Complex 41 where Viking had launched from just an hour or so earlier. Here is a photo taken through the window of our bus as it was moving along the roadway.

Our bus driver then turned inland just south of Launch Complex 39. In this photo, LC-39A is seen on the left. Further in the distance toward the right of the photo is LC-39B with the launch umbilical tower and “milk stool” which had been used to launch the U.S.’s part of the Apollo-Soyuz mission atop an Apollo Saturn IB rocket. Mission Commander Thomas Stafford, Command Module Pilot Vance Brand, and Docking Module Pilot Donald K. (Deke) Slayton joined up with the Soyuz spacecraft crewed by cosmonauts Alexei Leonov and Valery Kubasov from the Soviet Union.

The Apollo-Soyuz mission had happened a month prior to our trip. I don’t know why our vacation was timed such that it just missed the final launch of a Saturn rocket – in this case a Saturn IB – but at least we got the consolation prize of watching the Viking launch.

Here’s a closer look at the milkstool – and what the launch of the elevated Saturn IB looked like via NASA’s cameras.

From there, we continued on toward the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB). Here is a closer look at one of the launch gantries, parked outside the VAB, that was used for Apollo Saturn V launches. Eventually, these would be dismantled with parts repurposed or scrapped, with key pieces preserved for museum display. Part of the structure would be used for the upcoming Space Shuttle program. And much later, a brand new Launch Umbilical Tower would be constructed for use by the Artemis program.

As we arrived at the VAB, the photos indicate that the bus circled around and parked on the south side of the massive building and we were escorted inside.

On the walk over to the VAB, I asked the tour guide about the black and white markings on the Saturn V rocket. He tossed the question back to me, asking what I thought. I have clear memories of this. That simple act on his part made a lasting impression on me. It told fifteen-year-old me that I could be trusted to figure things out on my own.

Inside the cavernous building, it was essentially empty at the time we were there. The last Apollo mission had completed and there would be a six year gap in flights before the Space Shuttle would be ready to begin U.S. spaceflight operations.

I have very clear recollections of the remaining item of interest inside the VAB. A full-size high-fidelity Apollo-Soyuz with docking module was on display.

Again, my father’s photos turned out the best.

The Apollo Command and Service Modules were a test vehicle originally used for vibration and acoustic tests.7

From what I can tell from online sources and my own observations, I believe the Apollo half of the display was eventually moved to the new Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum for its opening in 1976. The Soyuz half may have been moved to another building at the Visitor Center at some point in time.89

The viewing angle my dad captured in his photo is reminiscent of space artist Robert McCall’s Apollo-Soyuz Linkup painted in 1974. I wonder if Dad had that painting in mind when he composed his shot.

Night at the Museum

Following the Vehicle Assembly Building tour, it was back to the Visitor Information Center for some last minute photos as they were closing.

Inside the Visitor Information Center was a mockup of the Viking lander. Here’s a photo I took after getting back from the bus tour. The clock on the far wall reads just after 8:00 and judging by the absence of the crowds we experienced when we arrived, it appears we must have closed down the place. (By the way, that is not the only time I have found myself being one of the last people in the KSC visitor complex, but that is perhaps a story for another day.)

If I were to ask you what looks unusual about this display, I wonder if you would pick out what I notice. The lander mockup is just sitting on the linoleum floor with only a black velvet rope separating it from curious hands. No plexiglass enclosure, no description sign that I can see, no simulated Martian surface, not even a plain black base to elevate it off the floor. Exhibit display practices have come a long way since then.

Another couple of traits I picked up from my dad were photographic composition and attention to detail. For example, I present these next photos my father hurriedly took in the fading light outside in the rocket garden. I can tell that he was trying his best to capture the near-full rising Moon in his shots together with the Lunar Module mockup. The symbolism was not lost on him.

Then and Now

As I reflect back on that impressive first visit to the Kennedy Space Center, I see it as one of the defining moments in my life. It was an important contributor to solidifying and reinforcing my interests in spaceflight, and qualifying my admission into a global community of fellow Space Geeks. To this day, I still carry those interests and have preserved my fascination with spaceflight history and the future of space exploration.

I have returned to the Kennedy Space Center many times since that first visit in the summer of 1975.

Here’s a then and now pair of photos showing me with a Skylab Multiple Docking Adapter (MDA) Full-Scale Engineering Mockup and One-G Trainer – first in 1975, then in 2018.

Here I am connecting with my first love in 1975 – the 1/10 scale cutaway model of the Apollo Saturn V at the KSC Visitor Information Center. It is still displayed, now beside the real thing in the Saturn V Center.

In total, I have made the pilgrimage to the Kennedy Space Center eight times, so far. I see no signs of stopping as long as there is history to be absorbed and there are launches to be experienced.

I saw my first Space Shuttle launch (Discovery, STS-96) in 1999 during another trip with my dad. In 2010, I was there to see my artwork launch aboard Atlantis (STS-132). I was there for a scrubbed launch attempt of Endeavour in 2011 (STS-134), and witnessed the last Space Shuttle launch later that same year (Atlantis, STS-135).

I went back in 2018 to display my artwork in the Atlantis pavilion during the Constellation Foundation’s fiftieth anniversary commemoration of Apollo 8.

And, I have been back twice in the past two years while participating in the space art shows for the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation’s Astronaut Hall of Fame events.

Never would I have thought, back in 1975 during a family vacation to the Kennedy Space Center, that I would be back to pay homage to our country’s space achievements so many times. And, fifteen-year-old me could not have dreamed that I would have my space-inspired artwork on display there – and never in a million years could I have predicted that my artwork would be launched on a space plane from one of the very launch pads used for the Apollo missions.

Curiosity and imagination never leave you if you continue to nurture them with experiences that fill you with awe and wonder.

Merch of the Month

Magnificent Ride Giclée Print

Magnificent Ride celebrates the Saturn V rocket which boosted the Moon-bound Apollo missions to their celestial targets. In this piece, I have attempted to capture the awesome beauty of the giant exhaust plume from the Saturn V’s first stage rocket engines.

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Your purchase from Pixel Planet Pictures helps support and promote space-related STEAM organizations and initiatives that enable and inspire students and youth to learn, develop, and pursue passions in science, technology, engineering, arts, and math.

I'm Dave Ginsberg, the artist behind Pixel Planet Pictures and writer of Creating Space.

I am an artist and a creative engineer with a love for teaching and passions for spaceflight, astronomy, and science. My space-inspired art portfolio can be found at pixel-planet-pictures.com.

Do you know fellow Space Geeks who might enjoy Creating Space? Invite them into this space, too!

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Exploring the intersection of spaceflight history, pop culture, and space art.

This edition of Creating Space follows Huckleberry Hound as he attempts to launch into the heavens in a 1960 View-Master reel. Plus, we get a unique behind-the-scenes look at how Sawyer, Inc. manufactured their View-Master viewers and reels.

Are you new to Creating Space? It’s the NERDSletter that explores the intersection of spaceflight history, pop culture, and space art. You can find this and all other posts at creating-space.art.

Huckleberry Hound Lands on the Moon

What could be more fitting for Independence Day weekend than this fine specimen of vintage Americana?

This 1960 View-Master reel features Hanna-Barbera Production’s Huckleberry Hound, my generation’s blue dog with the southern drawl. In this single disk episode, containing seven stereo image pairs, Huck decides to embark (pun intended) on an explosive adventure. His intended destination: the Moon!

It is a fine example of the intersection of spaceflight history and exploration, space art, and science (rocket and stereo optics), and is firmly rooted in the pop culture worlds of television and toys.

Double Vision

My interest in stereo imaging goes way back to my childhood. I have previously shared with readers of Creating Space a 3-D lenticular image of an Apollo Lunar Module model, and more lenticular images will be coming in the future. One of my favorite toys I had when I was a kid – and even today – was my View-Master stereo viewer. This is that very viewer.

View-Master, originally made by Sawyer, Inc. of Portland, Oregon, (later acquired by GAF Corporation) was a plastic-age update to the antique stereo card viewers, also known as stereoscopes or stereopticons, that were popular in the late 1800s and early 1900s.1

Those vintage Victorian era stereoscopes consisted of a pair of lenses, separated about eye-distance apart, mounted on the front of a metal or wooden shaded visor and a long wooden plank (for lack of a better term) which supported a sliding holder for the stereo image cards. A wooden barrier extended some distance out from the lens plane and served to prevent the eyelines from crossing. Focus was achieved by sliding the mounted stereo card forward or back along the support plank.

Fancier models might have leather cushions on the face-side of the visor. And, often, there would be a wooden handle extruding from below.

The stereo cards, themselves, were approximately 7 inches wide (178 mm) by 3.3 inches (85 mm) tall. Each one had two photographs set side-by-side centered in front of each of the viewer’s lenses. Each photograph would have been taken from a slightly different vantage point, usually about 8 inches (20 cm) apart for far off subjects.2

Put the two together, look through the lenses, and the parallax effect presents you with a realistic (albeit sepia toned) three-dimensional view of the scene.

The ingenious innovations made by Harold Graves of Sawyer, Inc. and William Gruber, whose stereo camera rig gave Graves the idea, was to place multiple images on a single card and to provide a way to advance the images much as one could do with slide projectors of the time.

The stereo image pairs were printed on Kodachrome color transparency slide film and arranged around a 3.5 inch (about 9 cm) white cardboard disk. The disk is inserted into a slot in the top of the viewer. Notches on the edge of the disk align to the internal rotation mechanism, and the slide images are advanced using a spring-loaded lever on the side. A small window between the lens housings would reveal a short caption that was printed on the disk.

The pictured View-Master reel is the very same one I had when I was a kid growing up in the early days of manned space exploration. It is still in my collection.

The Reel’s Story

Huckleberry Hound’s lunar adventure begins much as that of the United States’ – with a bold choice to beat the Russians to the Moon. The text of the narrative booklet that came with the View-Master reel begins with Huck declaring, “I’m plumb fed up with them Russian fellas shouting about getting to the moon first. I guess it’s up to ol’ Huck Hound to do something about the situation.” Perhaps not quite as eloquent as John F. Kennedy’s “We choose to go to the Moon” speech in 1962, but arguably just as daring.

And, just like the U.S. space program in the early days, Huck had some previous, although mixed, success with rockets prior to committing to his Moon shot.

The View-Master reel I have originally came in a three-reel packet together with a Yogi Bear story called “Patron of the Arts” and another Huck story called “Project Green Thumb”. While I clearly feel a connection with Yogi’s art story, “Huckleberry Hound Lands on the Moon” is, of course, the one that really caught my eye.

The success of Huck’s lunar mission rests upon the power of twelve sky rockets purchased from a local shop. He securely straps them onto the back of a home-made open cockpit (!) winged spaceship. With its streamlined construction and its carefully cut red and glittery silver paint job, his spaceship resembles the type you might find on a mechanical kiddie ride in front of the local grocery store in the 1960s.

Excitement ensues when the fireworks are lit and the rocket containing its bubble-helmeted pilot launches into the night sky. A clock tower is struck during the ascent through the atmosphere, and then Huck barely misses a pair of ducks just as his source of propulsive power poops out.

The sudden loss of lift causes a crash landing on a green and cratered apparently alien landscape. The final scene reveals that this was no alien planet at all, but a space-age 50’s drive-in with a domed roof made to look like the Moon. The final caption reads, “Space travel makes you hungry – a hamburger, please.”

For those with stereo viewers3, or that want to try their hand at free-viewing, here are stereo pairs of one of the frames from the View-Master disk. The first one is for parallel-eye viewing, or for use with stereo viewers.

The second stereo image pair is for cross-eyed viewing. This may be easier for some than parallel viewing, which can take some practice.

Lasting Impressions

The images and the story of that adventure with its corny visual punchline have stuck with me from that time on. They were impressed upon the part of my brain that permanently records the things that I found wondrous as a child. They left a firm imprint on my developing psyche and served to help define who I would become as a person, an artist, an engineer, and a Space Geek.

When I first started to apply my 3-D computer modeling skills to creating space imagery, the scenes I made must surely have had a direct lineage back to my memories of View-Master reels like this one.

Compare my version of Planets to the fourth scene from the Huckleberry Hound reel. Even though I had not looked at that View-Master reel in decades, the influence is plainly visible.

What continues to impress me most about View-Master reels of this type is that everything you see in the frames is a real, physical object. It amazes me the amount of work that must have gone into their creation.

Someone expertly crafted the each one of the figures, models and every object that appears in the scenes. Everything was built by hand. No computer generated imagery, no Photoshop. Just models, fishing line, and perhaps a little bit of hand photo manipulation and clever double exposures. The artists peeled the two-dimensional cartoon characters off of their flat animation cells and transformed them into the three-dimensional physical world.

There is an excellent video showing what went into creating View-Master plastic viewers, three-dimensional scenes and stereo reels on the Cartoon Research blog edited by Jerry Beck. The live broadcast, called “Success Stories”, was sponsored by Richfield Oil Corporation and highlighted businesses in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States.4

Video: “Success Story”, Sawyer View-Master manufacturing, Portland, Oregon, ca. 1950s

About one minute into the broadcast we can clearly see some of the character and prop models used in the Huckleberry Hound and Yogi reels featured in this article.

In creating some of my artwork, I make my own 3-D scenes and I sometimes create stereographic image pairs that work just like those on the View-Master reels. In contrast to the View-Master reels, nothing in my scenes is real. I model everything in the computer with a mesh of vertices, line segments, and faces. Color and texture are added with procedurally generated materials and bitmaps. Scenes are illuminated with imaginary lights and the resulting renderings are mere illusions of computational technology.

Again, here are stereo pairs of my ‘Planets’ artwork. The first one is for parallel-eye viewing, or for use with stereo viewers. The second stereo image pair is for cross-eyed viewing.

These days, so-called Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools can generate realistic images from mere text prompts in fractions of a second – including stereo images, as I just learned while researching this article. To be perfectly clear, I do not use such tools. My human hands, eyes, skill, and imagination are the only tools that I use to create my artwork. That’s the way it always has been for me, and likely will always remain so. I hope that, as a result, my humanity, heart, and humor come through loud and clear for viewers of my work.

When I gaze into stereo images, I get the same magical feeling that I experienced as a child. That sensation of being drawn into a three-dimensional world and being taken along on an adventure with a blue dog rocketing into the starry night.

Merch of the Month

Planets Signed Limited Edition Giclée Print

Signed Limited Edition Giclée prints are available directly from the artist.

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SOCIAL IMPACT

Your purchase from Pixel Planet Pictures helps support and promote space-related STEAM organizations and initiatives that enable and inspire students and youth to learn, develop, and pursue passions in science, technology, engineering, arts, and math.

I’m Dave Ginsberg, the artist behind Pixel Planet Pictures and writer of Creating Space.

I am an artist and a creative engineer with a love for teaching and passions for spaceflight, astronomy, and science.My space-inspired art portfolio can be found at pixel-planet-pictures.com.

Do you know fellow Space Geeks who might enjoy Creating Space? Invite them into this space, too!

Share Creating Space

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All images and text copyright © Dave Ginsberg, unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved.

Exploring the intersection of spaceflight history, pop culture, and space art.

Fifteen years ago this month I had the distinct pleasure of witnessing my artwork launch into Earth orbit aboard the Space Shuttle. In this edition of Creating Space, I recount the experience of seeing Atlantis lift off the pad and climb into the heavens. You will hear what it was like when you listen to the audio recording I made at the site. And, I describe the contest that led to the selection of a patch to commemorate the Space Shuttle Program, as well as my design entry for the competition.

Are you new to Creating Space? It’s the NERDSletter that explores the intersection of spaceflight history, pop culture, and space art. You can find this and all other posts at creating-space.art.

The First Final Launch of Atlantis

May 14, 2010, was a very special day. I experienced what at that time was to be one of the last remaining space thrills on the planet. I had a front row seat for the last scheduled launch of Space Shuttle Atlantis. Only two more Shuttle launches remained on NASA's then-current plans, so this was fast becoming a rare sight. My view was from a prime location seven miles due south of Pad 39-A on the NASA Causeway. LC-39A is the same one that was used for most of the Apollo missions. With clear blue skies, bright sun, and a light breeze, it could not have been a better day to launch a spaceship.

What made that day even more special for me was the fact that my artwork for a Space Shuttle patch design was inside Atlantis' payload bay.

More about that in a minute.

The Launch

Viewing the launch in person, along with thousands of others, was a spectacular sensory experience. The air was filled with an electric feeling of anticipation that grew rapidly during the final moments before liftoff. About ninety seconds before ignition, well wishes for a successful mission were offered to the crew over the public address speakers spaced evenly along the length of the causeway. Then the same voice enthusiastically exclaimed "GO-O-O-O-O ATLANTIS!!!"

Thirty seconds later, a voice from Launch Control was heard marking one minute to liftoff. I watched through binoculars as the gaseous oxygen vent arm (the "beanie cap") rotated away from the apex of the orange external fuel tank. "T-minus 13, 12, 11" ... the voice intensified ... "TEN, NINE, EIGHT, go for main engine start, SIX, FIVE, FOUR" ... a low rumble quickly rose to drown out the remaining numbers as the kids in the crowd continued the count.

When the count reached "zero" the crowd gave a preliminary cheer. For a moment, all that could be seen at the launch site was a white cloud of water vapor billowing up to obscure the Shuttle and its launch tower. Then LIFTOFF! A second, louder and more elated cheer erupted as we all could see Atlantis rising majestically from behind its own shroud of exhaust gases.

The spacecraft rose to reveal the source of its incredible power. So bright was the plume of fire being forced out behind the solid rocket booster engines, it was like looking at the Sun. I found myself mesmerized by the white light, unable to keep myself from staring into it. It seemed as if someone had torn a hole in the fabric of the sky to reveal a brilliant world outside our own.

Atlantis was well on its way skyward when the roar of the engines began to build to a heart pounding crackle - first sneaking across the water, then ripping past us like a freight train. The noise seemed to fracture the sky into pieces as it continued to radiate outward from the rising rocket nozzles. The sound of the engines seemed to follow several thousand feet behind the Shuttle, delayed by the difference between the speed of light and the speed of sound.

Listen to the launch of STS-132 …

About two minutes later, the twin solid rocket boosters could be seen separating from the external tank having completed their task. At that welcome sight, the crowd let out a final cheer of victory and relief, and applauded a fantastic performance.

At that moment, I felt an unexpected lump of pride in my throat and tears of joyful exhilaration started to well up in my eyes. I believe there was something in the air at that moment other than Space Shuttle Atlantis. It was the energy of tens of thousands of people who were present together experiencing what few would ever see again.

The Contest(s)

The artwork onboard Atlantis was the result of a design contest held by NASA’s Space Shuttle Program in 2009. They were seeking an insignia to commemorate the thirty-year span of the program as it was coming to an end.

The contest invited all current and former employees of NASA and its contractors to submit ideas for the insignia. Since I was working at Boeing at the time, a NASA contractor, I was eligible to participate.

The winning patch would be used to celebrate the accomplishments of the Space Shuttle Program when it retired, ultimately appearing on patches, medallions, award plaques, and other commemorative memorabilia. It would also be flown on one of the remaining Shuttle missions and the winner would be presented with their flown artwork as an award.

In total, there were eighty-five entries received. A team of managers from the Space Shuttle Program conducted the judging. My design was chosen as one of the top fifteen finalists.

In addition to the official judging, a "People's Choice Award" vote was also conducted for NASA employees in January 2010. My design placed fifth among the top fifteen finalists selected by the NASA managers.

Robert Pearlman, of collectSPACE, conducted an independent unofficial "Fans' Choice" poll at the same time NASA was having its "People's Choice Award" vote. Members of the space history and collecting community cast their votes, again among the original fifteen NASA finalists. My design placed sixth in that poll.

The Artwork

I created four different designs and variations for the contest. It is common for logo designers to sketch a variety of ideas to help hone in on a favorite to develop further. I chose as my entry the one that I believed best captured the spirit of what NASA was looking for to commemorate the many great accomplishments of the Space Shuttle program.

The design celebrates the Space Shuttle's thirty years of orbital operations (1981 – 2010)1 and the many great accomplishments of the Space Shuttle program. It is modeled after the traditional mission crew patches that have been used on space flights since the 1960's.

The Space Shuttle Orbiter is shown prominently over the Earth. Three other spacecraft join the Space Shuttle, symbolizing just a few of the many achievements made possible by the Shuttle program. To the left of the Shuttle is the International Space Station (ISS), which was launched, assembled, and populated largely by Space Shuttle missions (together with Russian modules and vehicles). Shown above the ISS is an astronaut floating free in space using a Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU). The MMU was first demonstrated in space on a Shuttle flight. To the right of the orbiter is the Hubble Space Telescope. The Hubble was launched into space, placed in orbit, and serviced several times using the Space Shuttle. Stars and a galaxy represent the expanding knowledge of the universe the Hubble has given us.

The Moon and Mars are illustrated to represent the future direction of human space exploration, and the many science achievements the Space Shuttle program has contributed toward those goals.

Six small stars represent the six orbiters in the Shuttle fleet. The names of the six vehicles of the fleet (including Enterprise) surround the design.

The two seven pointed stars, placed near the names of Columbia and Challenger pay tribute to the loss of those orbiters and the seven member astronaut crews of each of those missions.

In case you are curious, here are the three alternative designs I came up with, but were not submitted.2

The winning design, the one chosen by the NASA Space Shuttle program managers, was designed by Blake Dumesnil, who at the time worked at Hamilton Sundstrand as a camera engineer at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.3

I personally believe that Blake’s design is objectively the best out of all eighty-five entries, and I wholeheartedly agree with the choice of the NASA judges. If you see it today it will look more like the next one shown here. The text and dates were modified when the Shuttle flight schedule was extended. I think this one will earn its place as one of the iconic symbols of U.S. spaceflight.

Cargo for Launch

NASA’s original intention was to electronically uplink the winning insignia design to the International Space Station and return it to Earth with Endeavour's STS-130 crew. Ultimately it was decided to fly all eighty-five contest entries, and in a more physical form, if you will.

For Atlantis’ STS-132 flight, the design entries were written onto two compact discs (CDs) and prepared for the ride of their digital lives. One of the two of triangular tool stowage boxes that Atlantis would carry in its payload bay was loaded with commemorative patches and flags. Wedged in with the rest of the commemorative souvenirs were the CDs containing digital versions of the patch designs that had been entered into the contest.

Once packed and closed, the stowage box was carefully bolted into the payload bay between the starboard braces adjacent to Atlantis’ docking airlock.

The Dream is Alive

My passion for spaceflight originated in the 1960s and 70s when I followed the Apollo missions on TV and learned about them in books and magazines. I have long wanted to be able to design a mission patch and have it flown into space.

This was the second creation of mine to make the journey into the space beyond our planet. And while my design never made it quite to “mission patch” status, I am very proud and grateful to have had the privilege of vicariously joining the crew of Atlantis on STS-132. I felt a special connection to the mission and to the astronauts who made one of the last flights of the space shuttle program. Thank you, NASA, for taking my artwork to new heights!

During its 12 days in space, Atlantis along with the artwork made 186 orbits of the planet and traveled 4,879,978 miles (7,853,563 km). Atlantis ended up flying one last time on the final mission of the Space Shuttle program, STS-135 on July 8, 2011. My wife and I were there again – this time to witness the end of an incredible era in spaceflight.

Whenever I have a chance to see Atlantis on display at the Kennedy Space Center, I like to look at the place where the triangular stowage box was attached and remember the day my artwork launched into space.

And, reminding me every day is this photo, taken by Garrett Reisman during the STS-132 mission. I have it as the backdrop on my computer display.

Art News

I am very happy that I will once again be exhibiting my space-inspired artwork at the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame Induction weekend events this year in Cocoa Beach, Florida. I will be joining notable space artists Chris Calle, Lee Wilson, and astronaut/artist Nicole Stott. This year will also feature artwork by astronaut scholar, Will Jarvis.

This year’s celebrations will be held from May 29 through 31, 2025. This will be my third time exhibiting at an ASF event.

The space art reception will be open to the public. Admission is $25, and tickets will be available at the door on May 30. The reception will take place in the Horizons Ballroom of the Hilton Cocoa Beach Oceanfront located at 1550 North Atlantic Ave, Cocoa Beach, Florida, 32931.

The events are organized by the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation (ASF), a non-profit organization that provides scholarships to the brightest and most talented college students in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.4 I am proud to be able to support the ASF in their educational mission. A portion of my sales proceeds will go directly to the ASF organization.

Merch of the Month

Double Boosted Metal Print

Relive the thrill of watching the Space Shuttle launch every day with this high-quality wall art in your home or office.

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SOCIAL IMPACT

Your purchase from Pixel Planet Pictures helps support and promote space-related STEAM organizations and initiatives that enable and inspire students and youth to learn, develop, and pursue passions in science, technology, engineering, arts, and math.

I’m Dave Ginsberg, the artist behind Pixel Planet Pictures and writer of Creating Space.

I am an artist and a creative engineer with a love for teaching and passions for spaceflight, astronomy, and science. My space-inspired art portfolio can be found at pixel-planet-pictures.com.

Do you know fellow Space Geeks who might enjoy Creating Space? Invite them into this space, too!

Share Creating Space

Did you miss a post? Catch up here.

If you enjoyed this article please hit the ‘Like’ button and feel free to comment.

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All images and text copyright © Dave Ginsberg, unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved.

Exploring the intersection of spaceflight history, pop culture, and space art.

This edition of Creating Space presents a two-in-one treat for young Space Geeks everywhere. A Teaching Unit on Aerospace and Space Travel from the publishers of Compton’s Pictured Encyclopedia is both an educational reference for spaceflight and a colorful and engaging wall poster any 1960s kid would have loved to have hanging on their bedroom wall.

Are you new to Creating Space? It’s the NERDSletter that explores the intersection of spaceflight history, pop culture, and space art. You can find this and all other posts at creating-space.art.

A Teaching Unit on Aerospace and Space Travel from Compton's Pictured Encyclopedia

When I was growing up, our family had a set of World Book encyclopedias. It consisted of about two-dozen red inch-thick volumes. The ‘A’ and ‘S’ volumes were the ones I opened the most. To be more precise, our set was more finely divided. In the ‘A-Ale’ volume, I would read about Airplanes. ‘Ari-Azu’ is where I would learn about Astronomy. At the other end of the shelf, ‘S-Snu’ contained the ringed planet, Saturn, and ‘Soa-Szi’ revealed all the mysteries of Space. That’s right – I was one of the nerds that read the encyclopedia for fun. That early research would form much of the blueprint for the rest of my life.

As much as I enjoyed World Book’s encyclopedia, I recently discovered something that might have even more completely captured my imagination. Presented here for your consideration is a beautiful and comprehensive Teaching Unit on Aerospace and Space Travel from the publishers of Compton’s Pictured Encyclopedia, ca. 1963.

Had I not become an aerospace engineer, I might have chosen to pursue a career as an astronaut or work in astronomy. (As it turns out, I was too tall for the former, and an aversion to working nights ruled out the latter.) This teaching guide was aimed at educators with aspiring astronauts and space mission designers in their classrooms.

Covering Apollo

There are two things that attracted me to this teaching guide when I saw it on an auction website. The first was the image on the front cover. The second thing that caught my eye was the elaborately illustrated fold-out poster inside. More about that in a moment.

The cover page illustration depicts a student overlooking the Moon, around which orbits a very early pair of Apollo spacecraft. I love the striking way the Moon is illustrated. The bright yellow rays of the Sun shine a stark rim light over the lunar horizon. Crisply defined crater walls cast long spikes of shadows over the blue-tinted darker side of the Moon. Hand-painted illustrations of this era were particularly eye-catching, and used to great effect for younger audiences.

The two spacecraft represent the 1962 Lunar Orbit Rendezvous (LOR) proposal configuration for Apollo – the first of many design iterations. Regular readers of Creating Space, and those that know me personally, are aware of my fascination with the Lunar Module’s (LEM) design evolution. To me, finding physical media that includes such an early representation of the LEM is almost akin to finding an original draft of Kennedy’s “We choose to go to the Moon” speech. This is a rare example of how the nascent Moon program was being introduced to young readers to get them familiar with NASA’s bold plans.

Guidance is Internal

Opening the first of two folds of the guide reveals the teaching unit’s text and diagrams. The guide extensively covers two main topics – aerospace and space travel. According to the introductory text, “Travel through space is of high interest to children.” I can attest to this with first hand experience, having been a child once.

Each section of the three-page text portion of the guide gives a brief overview of a topic while referring the reader to specific articles within the main encyclopedia set for further research. Following this information is a list of suggested activities for teachers to use with their students in their classrooms, along with diagrams in some of the sections. Teachers could tailor the material for a variety of grade levels – from primary grades up through junior high school – by adapting the detailed information provided.

Sections include “The Expanse of Aerospace”, “Space Travel Timeline”, “Rockets”, “Satellites and Telemetry”, “Manned Space Travel”, “Space Station”, and “Flights to the Moon”.

Here are the diagrams that accompany the text.

This one is titled, How Rockets Work. Actually, the diagram does little to explain how they work, but instead gives an overview of the structural layout of solid-fueled missiles.

Next comes an interesting illustrated list of various types of satellites and their uses. I find it amusing that the term “moon” was used at that time to describe artificial satellites. Even the term “artificial” demonstrates how novel these orbiting workhorses were back then.

This “Simplified Satellite Telemetry System” does more than hint at how complex the collection of sensors and signal receiving and processing equipment really is. Perhaps there are some seasoned electrical engineers that first got interested in their field by studying diagrams like this one.

Charting Your Course to the Moon

I’ve saved the best for last. On the reverse side of the double-fold-out pamphlet is a beautifully illustrated poster diagramming a flight to the Moon. I love these old educational posters. This one does a wonderful job of combining in-depth educational content with eye-catching graphic design.

The centerpiece of the poster is an elaborately depicted Earth and Moon superimposed with a pretzel-twisting of numbered orbital paths. Song writer, Arlo Guthrie, would be impressed by all the circles and arrows and paragraphs on the back of this glossy document.1

The diagram presents two different lunar missions – a lunar fly-by trip and a lunar landing mission. The lunar fly-by trajectory shows, in green, a launch from Florida with a non-orbital swing around the far side and a direct return to a location somewhere in the southern United States. There will be no wimpy splashdowns for these intrepid explorers!

The lunar landing mission is presented with a stop at an orbiting space station. Early concepts for space missions often included stops at a space station. Some of those concepts suggested that that vehicles would be assembled in space, either inside or nearby the station, and fueled up to complete the remainder of the trip. The assumption being that those vehicles could be built exclusively for travel in space and thereby be made lighter and more efficient. They could also be built to be larger than anything that could be launched aboard any single rocket from Earth.

There are two interesting things I think are worth noting regarding the lunar landing scenario. First is the combination of a lunar orbit rendezvous (LOR) approach together with a stop at a space station. The Apollo lunar landing missions, as you know, launched a pair of spacecraft – a Command/Service Module and a Lunar Module – on a single rocket and flew non-stop to the Moon.

The second thing to note is the possibility of remaining near the Moon for fourteen days. Apollo lunar missions were designed to last up to two weeks in total from launch to splashdown. Given that it took about three days to traverse the distance between the Earth and Moon, each way, that would leave a maximum of eight days left for being near and on the Moon. The longest of the lunar landing missions – Apollo 17 – took twelve-and-a-half days in total.2 The time in the Moon’s vicinity was only 6 days. It is interesting to see on the poster the change in the Moon’s position in its orbit after 14 days. That is approximately half of its orbit. It honestly never occurred to me that the Moon made almost a half an orbit in the time of the entire Apollo 17 mission.

There are three additional diagrams inset within purple frames below the orbit drawing.

The first depicts, interestingly enough, a direct ascent type lunar landing scenario. Departing an Earth-orbiting space station is an early von Braun / Chesley Bonestell style Moonship. Midway between the Earth and Moon, empty fuel tanks are jettisoned. The remainder of the ship approaches the Moon and flips around for landing.

Here’s the von Braun moonship illustrated by Chesley Bonestell for comparison.

By the way – I wonder if the Direct Ascent drawing might have originally been drawn flipped with the Earth near the top and the Moon at the bottom. Looking at the Earth’s land masses, it appears to me that the north pole is near the bottom of the sphere, near the letter ‘H’ in ‘EARTH’.

The next inset, titled “How a Spaceship Gets to the Space Station”, illustrates what looks to be a Saturn V (or C-5, at that time) rocket traveling into Earth orbit. Altitudes, speeds, and downrange distances are called-out at various points. Engine cut-off points mark where the first and second stages are jettisoned.

Where, you may ask, is the space station and how does our spaceship get to it? I guess learning about orbital mechanics and rendezvous are left to the enterprising reader.

The third and final inset is one similar, at first glance, to diagrams one might have seen in a number of science books about flight. I am referring to illustrations that identify the different regions of the atmosphere, such as Troposphere, Stratosphere, etc. This one, however, takes a giant step back and splits up the space above the atmosphere (here simplified into just upper and lower) into separate regions.

Starting from the bottom, using a log scale, the atmosphere meets “Terrestrial Space” at about 100 nautical miles (185 km) above the Earth’s surface. The Aurora Borealis is shown in this region. Then comes “Cis-Lunar Space” reaching the Moon. “Translunar Space” extends beyond the Moon to about one-million nautical miles (1.85 million km). “Interplanetary Space” is how far one would need to travel to reach the planets in our solar system. “Interstellar Space” – the distance to the stars in our galaxy. And, finally, “Intergalactic Space” – the distances to other galaxies.

Men in Space

On the bottom of the poster is a list of men who had flown in space, beginning with Yuri Gagarin on April 12, 1961 and ending with Joseph Walker’s flight on August 22, 1963.

The Mercury astronauts are well-known names in the United States. Some readers may be familiar with the Soviet Union’s cosmonauts mentioned in the table.

Robert White, Robert Rushworth, and Joseph Walker may be less familiar names. They were among the twelve men who piloted the X-15 rocket research plane. The flights spanned from 1959 to 1968.3 The flight research program investigated both high speed and high altitude flight. The highest of the high altitude flights exceeded the 50 mile (80 km) mark, which was designated by the U.S. Air Force to be the minimum height to be considered as spaceflight. At the time, NASA used the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) definition for the boundary of space, 100 km (62 miles). Eight of the X-15 pilots eventually earned their astronaut wings flying high altitude test flights.4 White, Rushworth, and Walker are included in the teaching guide’s chart for this reason.

Presumably, the blank lines on the right are spaces where you could write in up to eight of the next space travelers. I will leave that as an exercise for the ambitious Creating Space reader.

Art News

I am very happy to announce that I will once again be exhibiting my space-inspired artwork at the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame Induction weekend events this year in Cocoa Beach, Florida. I will be joining notable space artists Chris Calle, Lee Wilson, and astronaut/artist Nicole Stott.

This year’s celebrations will be held from May 29 through 31, 2025. This will be my third time exhibiting at an ASF event.

The events are organized by the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation (ASF), a non-profit organization that provides scholarships to the brightest and most talented college students in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.5 I am proud to be able to support the ASF in their educational mission. A portion of my sales proceeds will go directly to the ASF organization.

Merch of the Month

Solar System Giclée Print

Plan your own trip to the Moon or the planets in our solar system with this high-quality wall art.

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I’m Dave Ginsberg, the artist behind Pixel Planet Pictures and writer of Creating Space.

I am an artist and a creative engineer with a love for teaching and passions for spaceflight, astronomy, and science. My space-inspired art portfolio can be found at pixel-planet-pictures.com.

Do you know fellow Space Geeks who might enjoy Creating Space? Invite them into this space, too!

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Exploring the intersection of spaceflight history, pop culture, and space art.

This edition of Creating Space examines various ways in which space artists have missed the mark when it came to accuracy in their illustrations and paintings. So, buckle up – we’re blasting off on a Space Art Oddity tour!

Are you new to Creating Space? It’s the NERDSletter that explores the intersection of spaceflight history, pop culture, and space art. You can find this and all other posts at creating-space.art.

The Stars Look Very Different Today

This edition of Creating Space introduces the concept of Space Art Oddities.

Call them what you wish – oversights, mistakes, goofs or outright blunders – space art oddities1 are things that look out of the ordinary or unexpected in works of space art.

Specific examples might be illustrations in which the Earth is depicted without any clouds, or that have the sunlight coming from multiple inconsistent directions, or when space vehicles are simply drawn wrong. I have seen all of these things in various works of space art – sometimes from prominent and accomplished artists.

If you have read this blog’s first introductory post, you know that this is a topic that – perhaps oddly – interests me. From time to time, I will share some of these space art oddities with readers of Creating Space. The first of these is truly out of this world.

You’ll Get a Blast Out of This One

To help you visualize what I am describing, I have chosen an example from the 1960s that exhibits all three of these odd characteristics – and more.

BLAST-OFF! is a board game that was first sold in 1969, around the time of the first manned Moon landing. The banner on the box proudly proclaims itself as “The game of modern space exploration and technology”. We’ll see just how modern this game really was.

The box-top artwork is quite a sight to behold. There’s a lot going on here, so let me break it down.

The scene depicts two astronauts engaging in extra-vehicular activity (EVA) outside their Lunar Module (LM)2 which has landed on a clear, level plain bordered by sharply peaked mountain ranges. The Earth hangs in the starless black lunar sky.

All seems quite normal so far. Or does it?

One can’t help but notice some things that are a little odd about this illustration. Can you spot them all? Let’s take them one at a time ...

By the way, I mean no disrespect for the artist who created the box illustration. They were given an assignment, likely on a short deadline, and even more likely with specific art direction to follow. Everything has been executed faithfully and is easily recognizable. Plus, being a game, complete accuracy was probably not the goal. More likely, the goal was to create something eye-catching that might capture the imaginations of kids, and convince Mom or Dad to buy it for them. Having said that, let’s have a little fun with what we see here.

Lunar Gemini

By far, the most attention-grabbing aspect of this box art has to be the two Gemini capsules and the Agena spacecraft looming large and low over the heads of the astronauts – who, incidentally, seem oblivious to what is happening right above their helmets.

There are at least two questions we can ask.

Why Gemini?

... and ...

How fast would they be going?

To address the Gemini question, first, the game uses player pieces that resemble Gemini and Agena spacecraft. That may be the main reason why they are depicted on the box.

But, did you know there is a historical connection between Gemini and the Moon?

The Gemini program flew missions between 1964 and 1966, and was conceived as the way NASA would learn to do everything necessary to achieve the upcoming Apollo missions to the Moon. Those things included long-duration missions, orbital maneuvering, multiple spacecraft rendezvous and docking, extra-vehicular activity (or, space walking), performing useful work in space, developing and perfecting re-entry and landing methods, as well as testing and evaluating as a host of new technologies, equipment, and procedures.

While those missions were designed for, and executed in, exclusively Earth orbit, there were some discussions about using a Gemini capsule as a Moonship.

To adequately cover the many variations of Lunar Gemini would require volumes. Other space history articles345 have done an excellent job of describing the multitude of proposals for using a Gemini capsule as the basis for getting to the Moon by the end of the 1960s. I encourage you to read the articles listed in the footnotes.

Indeed, expediency was one of the major motivations for most of those proposals. Proponents of such schemes argued that the Gemini spacecraft was already developed and had a proven record of success. They also noted that the smaller, lighter capsule, coupled with the fact that it carried only two men, meant that smaller boosters could be employed and therefore might make the development of the huge Saturn V rocket unnecessary.

Various boosters and upper stages were considered to get a Gemini capsule to the Moon, either in a direct shot or via rendezvous in Earth orbit – Titan II, Titan-IIIC, Centaur upper stage, Saturn C-3, Saturn IB, and even the Saturn V. Associated with these boosters would be either specialized mini lunar modules launched separately and docked to a Gemini in Earth orbit or an augmented Gemini to serve as a lunar lander.

Given that some of these approaches required the Gemini to dock to a booster stage to reach lunar altitudes, it may not be so far fetched that the BLAST-OFF! game uses Gemini/Agena couples as game pieces.

Fast and Curious

The second question regarding the Gemini vehicles on the BLAST-OFF! box is, how fast would they need to be going to remain in such a low lunar orbit (assuming, of course, they don’t encounter any mountains or high crater walls)?

After treating myself to a little refresher on orbital mechanics, I worked up a quick little spreadsheet to calculate orbital velocities.

Using the astronaut near the LM as a scale reference, it appears that the Gemini and Agena spacecraft are maybe about 20 feet (6 m) above the surface. Using the orbital mechanics equations I found, it works out the velocity needed to maintain orbit at that height above the Moon’s surface is roughly 3,760 mph (6,050 km/h). That’s fast, especially when you are that close to the ground! The lunar traffic cops would definitely be handing out a couple of space speeding tickets in this case.

For reference, Apollo orbited at an altitude of about 60 nautical miles (110 km) and a speed of close to 3,650 mph (5,860 km/h). Interestingly, if I have done my calculations correctly, Apollo’s orbital velocity was not that different than that of the extremely low Gemini capsules.

I Can See Clearly, Now

The Earth depicted on the BLAST-OFF! box appears to be devoid of clouds. Not only that, but it looks strangely devoid of water, altogether. But, I am sure that just may be a result of faded colors on this half-century-old box.

Here’s a color adjusted version of the Earth ...

If anything, there might be too much water on this globe. Look at what appears to be a great sea covering much of the eastern central United States. Could this be a prediction of future sea level rise? I don’t know. For now, let’s focus on the lack of clouds.

I am fascinated with how early illustrations of Earth from space very often showed no clouds. Artists, I would think, knew intellectually that clouds existed and could be seen in the sky from below, but did they think they would somehow be invisible from space? Apparently, Earth had world-wide perpetual sunny weather if the artists (with a few exceptions) were to be believed.

Cameras lofted into space delivered photographic evidence to the contrary. In 1946, high above White Sands, New Mexico, a camera mounted to a captured German V2 rocket came back with this image.

Fifteen years later, a select group of astronauts and cosmonauts began to witness the cloud-covered Earth with their own eyes. Here’s a great shot of Buzz Aldrin in the open hatch of his Gemini 12 capsule, while docked with an Agena. The beautiful blue globe of the Earth, dusted with bright white clouds, serves as the backdrop.

Shining a Light on the Subject

Some early works of space art display a meticulously rendered moonscape, for example, showing off accurately depicted details of a spacecraft and surrounding rocks and craters. The artist might have a planet in the black sky above. If you look for it, you might notice something odd in some of these paintings. It might dawn on you that everything in the scene is lit from one direction – except for that one planet up there.

As you might have guessed, the BLAST-OFF! box art contains just such a goof. While the lighting and shadows on the lunar mountains and the LM are consistent with each other – indicating the Sun’s position high and to the left of the scene – the objects in space appear to have their own independent light sources.

The Earth shows a main light source coming from the right, with that half of the hemisphere brightly lit.

Interestingly, there is another hint of light on the left side. This is an example of a classic drawing and painting technique for still life renderings. If you picture the Earth as a ball sitting on a table and lit from the side, there will be a bright side and dark side, as expected. Additionally, there will be subtle gradations of light and shadow. A lighter area will be caused by light bouncing off the table onto the ball, and darker areas will be seen in places where shadowed surfaces meet.

The box artist may have been falling back on his classical training in this case. I must admit that I, myself, have fallen victim to this temptation. The solar system mural I created for the Museum of Flight in Seattle, Washington, has lighting coming from two directions – the main light source on the left and a secondary rim light on the right. This was an artistic choice on my part. I felt the addition of the rim light enhanced the look of the image and help separate the planets from the black background. The museum exhibit designers accepted my use of artistic license, in this case.

For Here Am I Sitting in a Tin Can

Another common oddity I see often is misdrawn spacecraft – most frequently, the Apollo Lunar Module. Now, I will be the first one to recognize that the LM is not the easiest thing to get right, with all of its angular shapes and irregular facets. But, some of the depictions I have seen really mangle that poor little bug beyond what might result from trying to draw complex geometry.

Take, for instance, this LM. To be fair, if you take the ascent and descent stages separately, they are each represented fairly well at first glance. But, for some unknown reason, the two stages appear to be out of alignment with each other. Maybe they experienced a very hard landing.

Looking closer, though, some odd features begin to jump out at me. For example, why is the front ‘cheek’ of the ascent stage, below the Commander’s window, jutting out so far? And what exactly is going on with the lower leg struts? I’m beginning to think the artist may have been assisted by Pablo Picasso.

Inside the box, there is another example of an oddly-shaped Lunar Module (LM). The game contains a stack of cards that players may use to give extra ‘rocket thrust’ to their pieces. Each card contains an illustration of an Apollo Command/Service Module (CSM) docked to a Lunar Module. Let’s set aside the odd mix of Apollo imagery with the other Gemini references in the game. The LM is a truly unique rendition among those that I have seen elsewhere. In this case, the artist didn’t even try to attempt to draw the complex angular shape of the LM ascent stage. Instead, there is something that resembles an apple with a section sliced out of it – complete with seeds and all!

Drawing Conclusions

There are more things I could say about the artwork on the BLAST-OFF! box. For instance, I could point out that the lunar mountains are steep and sharply pointed, even though by 1969 it was well known that the Moon had rounded, undulating hills due to impact erosion by meteorites. My guess, judging from the early configuration of the LM and the space suits, is that they may have chosen to save some money by using artwork that had been done previously. I could also ask why the lunar surface is yellow (cheese?). But, I understand artistic license and the fact that bright colors are better for marketing.

Rick Armstrong once shared, during a public talk, what it was like watching TV and movies with his father, Neil. There wasn’t a single error that would go by without Neil pointing it out. I think this is a common trait among engineers. We naturally see factual mistakes and logical inconsistencies. And, because of our particular (dare I say, peculiar?) social skills, we sometimes can’t help but point them out.

I find myself doing this all the time, as well. I know that I may drive people crazy by doing this, but it is a sickness for which I know no cure. I can’t tell you how many times I have seen rockets miraculously change from Redstones to Atlases to Titans to Saturns during launches when the camera angle changes. One of my biggest peeves is hearing a narrator talk about the Apollo Translunar Injection (TLI) while the video clearly shows the view out of a Gemini window of the trailing plasma during the heat of reentry. (They sometimes even dub the sound of a rocket engine over such erroneous video. Argh!)

As an artist and designer, I think this – let’s call it either a superpower or a curse – extends into the visual realm. I can’t unsee uneven text kerning. Not a crookedly hung picture escapes my glance. I can’t help but see inconsistent Sun angles and cloudless Earths. And, ever since I first noticed incorrectly drawn Lunar Modules, I find them everywhere I look.

Now, you too have this superpower. You’re welcome. Please, use it to do good in the world.

Merch of the Month

Bubble Blasted (Horizontal) Giclée Print

At first glance, this may look a little odd, but I assure you that the lighting is consistent and the LEM is accurate*.

(* Except for the bubble gum, of course.)

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Your purchase from Pixel Planet Pictures helps support and promote space-related STEAM organizations and initiatives that enable and inspire students and youth to learn, develop, and pursue passions in science, technology, engineering, arts, and math.

I’m Dave Ginsberg, the artist behind Pixel Planet Pictures and writer of Creating Space.

I am an artist and a creative engineer with a love for teaching and passions for spaceflight, astronomy, and science. My space-inspired art portfolio can be found at pixel-planet-pictures.com.

Do you know fellow Space Geeks who might enjoy Creating Space? Invite them into this space, too!

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Exploring the intersection of spaceflight history, pop culture, and space art.

Creating Space begins its third year of publication with a 3-D look at the quarter scale model of the 1963-1964 Apollo Lunar Excursion Module design that I shared last time. Along the way, we will visit a simulated lunar landscape that existed for a time at the Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston, Texas.

Are you new to Creating Space? It’s the NERDSletter that explores the intersection of spaceflight history, pop culture, and space art. You can find this and all other posts at creating-space.art.

Models of the Quarter

In the past two editions of Creating Space, regular readers have been treated to two increasingly large models of one of the developmental versions of the Apollo Lunar Excursion Module (LEM). Here they are, again, as a refresher. If you are a new reader of this NERDSletter, please be sure to click through to the previous articles.

The first LEM model was approximately 1:12 scale and stood 22 inches (56 cm) tall. Its span dimension, measured diagonally across opposing footpads, was 32 inches (81 cm). Here’s NASA scientist, Julian Rogers, on the left holding an example of the model with L. J. Carter of the British Interplanetary Society in 1966.

The second model was a quarter scale version of the same configuration. It stood over 5 feet (1.5 m) tall. These women are provisional members of the Junior League of Seattle and are giving their full attention to the large LEM model for the benefit of the photographer. The photo was taken at the Pacific Science Center in 1968.

Now, we will again take a look at the larger of the two models, this time using it to explore the dimension of depth by venturing deep into the world of lenticular images.

Don’t worry if you’ve misplaced your 3-D glasses because where we’re going we won’t need them.

LEM on the Rocks

To set the stage for this story, we need to look back at one of the ways NASA devised to prepare its Apollo astronauts for what they might encounter after they landed on the Moon, and to test some of the equipment they would use. I’ve previously talked about rocket gardens – now, you’ll learn a little bit about NASA’s rock garden.

Around the middle of the decade that began in 1960, lunar mission planners at the Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston, Texas (later to be named after President Lyndon B. Johnson), constructed a lunar activities training field in a large parcel of land some distance to the northwest of the main facilities. Within the fenced off area, part of the former cattle grazing area upon which the center was built, they bulldozed a reasonable facsimile of the lunar landscape, complete with a couple sizable craters. Covering the gently sloping moonscape were rugged gray rocks and boulders. The surface features were likely based upon imagery obtained from the unmanned Ranger probes launched earlier. The name given to this terrestrially-based training area was what one might expect from NASA – the Lunar Topographical Simulation Area.

For those who may be familiar with the layout of the Johnson Space Center, or who may want to go on a space history archeological expedition1, here are some photos that show where the Lunar Topographical Simulation Area was located in relation to the main campus. (Additional photos of the present site in the footnote.)

Here is a view looking northwest, opposite the direction to the previous photo. The photo was taken in 1966.

Pulling back from the location of the previous photo, some of the buildings of the main campus can be seen.

Here is an aerial view of the entire Manned Spacecraft Center as it appeared in 1966 with the Lunar Topographical Simulation Area circled.

Tranquilly based upon this simulated lunar landscape, adjacent to one of the craters, was a gleaming white full-scale mockup of the LEM as it appeared on configuration drawings at Grumman around 1965. One might easily imagine the surprise and disbelief of some of the locals who happened to drive by the day after the aliens landed!

This version of the LEM, by the way, was similar to the low-fidelity one displayed at the Space Park at the 1964-65 New York World’s Fair. Notable updates to the newer 1965 configuration include changes to the landing leg struts, the elimination of the forward facing docking tunnel, addition of the front porch and ladder, and more realistic reaction control nozzles.

The mockup at the Lunar Topographical Simulation Area has its own claim to fame, beyond being used for astronaut training. World renown illustrator, Norman Rockwell, was commissioned by NASA to paint a depiction of the moment that an Apollo astronaut would take mankind’s first footstep on the Moon.

For his painting, called “Man's First Step on the Moon”, Rockwell visited the Manned Spacecraft Center to get a first-hand look at the best reference material he had access to – the diorama-like simulated Apollo landing site.

Here is Rockwell speaking via a headset to whom I believe to be Jack Mays2, test subject from NASA’s Crew Systems Division. Rockwell was known for his realistic depictions of people experiencing various aspects of life in America. It was typical for him to use posed photographs of people for reference. The lunar landing scene was no different. Rockwell took photographs of Mays in various positions in and around the LEM mockup for use back in his Massachusetts studio.

Rockwell’s painting, seen here, was published in the January 10, 1967 issue of Look magazine. More on that in a future post.

Attack of the 5-Foot Moon Lander – Now in 3-D!

Now that you know about NASA’s lunar rock garden, you have the context for what you are about to see next ... in stunning 3-D!

This is the quarter-scale LEM model, mentioned previously, sitting among the rocks in the Lunar Topographical Simulation Area. The 3-D image is from the June/July 1967 issue of Venture magazine.

Affixed to the cover of the magazine is a 6.5 inch (16.5 cm) wide by 6.25 inch (15.9 cm) tall 3-D lenticular image of the Apollo Lunar Module model resting on a rocky surface with an astronaut in the background. The photo was taken at the NASA Manned Spacecraft Center, Houston, Texas. The only thing missing that might complete the illusion is a black sky, rather that the bright sunny cloudless day in Texas.

The magazine provides the following caption:

“At the NASA Manned Spacecraft Center, Houston, Texas, a simulated lunar landscape (the rocks come from as far away as Hawaii) permits engineers to test and evaluate the flexibility of astronaut clothing. Venture’s 3-D camera, anticipating 1970, recently put a quarter-scale lunar module and a cooperative dummy on the cratered terrain to suggest the momentous landing – as well as a Texan’s view of the earth from the moon. Photographed by Visual Panographs, Inc.”

Venture was a travel magazine published by Cowles Communications, Inc., the original publishers of LOOK magazine. In the mid-1960s, they pioneered the mass production and publication of 3-D lenticular photographs. Referred to as ‘xographs®’ at the time, they permitted simulated three-dimensional viewing with the naked eyes without special viewers. They achieved this by overlaying a grooved plastic sheet adhered on top of a special banded photograph. The grooves had curved lens-like cross-sections that presented each of the viewer’s eyes with different angles of the image. The result used the properties of parallax vision to create a three-dimensional illusion of depth.

This message to readers from the June 1965 issue of Venture may provide some insight into how novel and revolutionary the mass production of lenticular images was:

Publisher’s Log. If you are startled by the cover of this anniversary issue, you have good reason to be: It is the first three-dimensionally produced cover ever to appear on a national magazine.

This revolutionary departure in photography is called XOGRAPH. The process has been under development by Cowles Magazines and Broadcasting, Inc., VENTURE’s publisher, for more than fourteen years and has been perfected only in the past year. Starting with this issue, XOGRAPH 3-D photography will be featured on the cover of every issue of VENTURE.

The possibilities of three-dimensional photography are enormous, from bringing to life the designs of brilliant artists, such as Marilyn Bass’ paper sculpture of San Francisco on our cover, to re-creating with striking vividness the maiden flight of a new jet. Already our 3-D cameras are roaming the world for subjects. The pictures they take will enable you to step the rim of the Grand Canyon and experience the full impact of its awesome size and depth; to savor the classic proportions of the Acropolis; to sense the very presence of a sheikh standing at a Moroccan roadside.

For almost a century, photographers have understood the principles of three-dimensional photography that could be enjoyed without special glasses.

However, the major problem has been to refine these techniques and adapt them to modern high-speed printing presses. Working with Eastman Chemical Products, Inc., we have hurdled this final barrier.

In addition to the achievement of 3-D printing itself, there was a further challenge in bringing it to VENTURE: It was necessary to develop a new format for our covers, in order to produce the most efficient and accurate application of each 3-D photograph. The result of our efforts is the distinctive new portfolio style cover of this issue.

VENTURE’s aim from its inception has been to involve the reader more personally as a participant in the essential travel experience. We believe that 3-D photography on our covers, and later on inside pages as well, will dramatically enhance the excitement of the world of travel that is VENTURE.

Lenticular images became very popular at that time because of their novelty. They were offered as postcards, trading cards, and were even attached to breakfast cereal boxes. Older specimens are sought after by collectors, and you can find modern examples in stores even today.

I have a collection of spaceflight themed lenticular postcards which I will share in a future post.

Merch of the Month

Rocket Martini Acrylic Block

Celebrate the new year with this festive rocket martini custom acrylic block print.

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Your purchase from Pixel Planet Pictures helps support and promote space-related STEAM organizations and initiatives that enable and inspire students and youth to learn, develop, and pursue passions in science, technology, engineering, arts, and math.

I’m Dave Ginsberg, the artist behind Pixel Planet Pictures and writer of Creating Space.

I am an artist and a creative engineer with a love for teaching and passions for spaceflight, astronomy, and science. My space-inspired art portfolio can be found at pixel-planet-pictures.com.

Do you know fellow Space Geeks who might enjoy Creating Space? Invite them into this space, too!

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1

If you do decide to go on your own trip to the simulated Moonbase, be advised that some digging may be required. If you are lucky, you may find a rock or two. But, watch out for the Lunar Guard Squad. My guess is that NASA may frown upon unauthorized sample return missions.

Modern day maps and photographs show very little remaining evidence of the Lunar Topographical Simulation Area. These present day aerial views from Google Maps reveal the area as a slightly greener parcel of grass in the shape of the formerly fenced-in area. You can see what may be a vestigial stub of the entrance driveway off of West Linkage Road, and a brown patch to its south that roughly equates to the size and shape of what might have been the original parking area. One might even be convinced that the outline of the larger of the two craters and what was once the raised rock mound can still be seen as a lighter brown patch on the west side.

Compare the following image with the one at the top of this section.

2

NASA via Mike Acs’ Flickr, a_v_c_v_AKP (S-66-45462), front, back

"LUNAR TESTS -- Jack Mays, a test subject from the MSC Crew Systems Division, wears an International Latex Corporation spacesuit under a thermal overgarment during tests at the Lunar Topographical Simulation Area. He is also wearing a Portable Life Support System (PLSS) back pack. A full-scale mock-up of a Lunar Module is in background."

Exploring the intersection of spaceflight history, pop culture, and space art.

In the previous edition of Creating Space, I shared a 1:12 scale model of a 1963-1964 Apollo Lunar Excursion Module design. Now, I take a look at a model that is much larger in scale.

Are you new to Creating Space? It’s the NERDSletter that explores the intersection of spaceflight history, pop culture, and space art. You can find this and all other posts at creating-space.art.

Model of the Month

Readers of the previous edition of Creating Space saw a recent addition to my contractor model collection – a 22 inch (56 cm) tall model of an early Apollo Lunar Excursion Module (LEM) designed by Grumman. Topping that one, this time, is a model of greater scale ... too big, even, to fit in my collection.

In the 1960s, manned spaceflight was taking off and NASA not only took on missions into space, but had as part of their charter a mission to make it known to the American public what they were up to. One of the most effective ways NASA used to educate people about what they were working on was by way of eye-catching informational displays in museums and NASA centers around the country. These displays often included as their focal points impressive scale models of spacecraft.

One of the advantages large museums have over most private home-based collections is that they have lots of space to display big things. As is often the case, the availability of lots of space leads to making big things to fill that space.

Such is the case with the 1963-1964 one-quarter scale Apollo Lunar Module model. At that scale, the model stood over 5 feet (1.5 m) tall.

I have been able to find several appearances of this model spanning the mid-1960s to the present.

Pacific Science Center, Seattle, Washington, 1968

If you lived in the Pacific Northwest in the mid-1960s and made a visit to the Pacific Science Center in Seattle, Washington (a building built for the 1962 Seattle World’s Fair), you might have encountered this one-quarter scale version of the 1963-1964 LEM. And, if you were a provisional member of the Junior League of Seattle participating in a docent program in 1968, you might have found yourself modeling for a photographer taking this photo with that very model. (Photographer: “Miss, would you please point toward the reaction control thrusters?”)

In the photo are (as identified on the reverse), kneeling, Mrs. Albert Fessler, left, and Mrs. Edward R. Wolfe; and standing, from left, Marcia Watt and the Mesdames Douglas DeForest, Arthur Blakeney, Dennis Dunn, Eben Carlson and Stephen Davis.

Incidentally, the Junior League of Seattle is still going strong, today, and celebrated its 100th anniversary this year (2024). I wonder if any Creating Space readers know any of the women pictured.

Manned Spacecraft Center, Houston, Texas, 1965

If you were one of the lucky kids whose parents worked for the Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston, Texas, in 1965, you may have attended a children’s open house. And, in the lobby of the auditorium, you certainly would have been immediately drawn to the big white bug-like contraption on display. That’s right, it is another appearance of a one-quarter scale version of the 1963-1964 LEM. Just as with the Pacific Science Center’s copy, this one is performing its mission to educate and inspire those who view it.

These three kids were in the right place at the right time to be captured in this photo. Left to right, are Deborah C. Carr, Teddy Youngblood, and Neyland Youngblood. (Photographer: “Young men, would you please point out the rendezvous radar antenna?”)

Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Alabama, 1964

So far, we have seen that people both young and adult can be fascinated by such models. Now we have an example of interest extending internationally.

The next photo shows the same type of LEM model at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in September 1964. Evelyn Falkowski is pointing out features to British Colonel John Stevenson at Marshall’s Space Orientation Center, the forerunner to what is now the U.S. Space & Rocket Center.

Something tells me that the photographer didn’t need to ask Evelyn to use her pointer for this shot.

NASA published a biography of Evelyn on their history website, which is well worth reading. Here is an excerpt describing her work at Marshall Space Flight Center.

Falkowski started work at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in March 1962, accepting a position as an historian. While her work also included compiling the illustrated chronology of Saturn program development, Falkowski’s primary responsibility was as curator at the Marshall Space Orientation Center (SOC) – the museum which opened in February of 1963 and was the forerunner to the U.S. Space and Rocket Center. Located in Building 4471 and operated by the Historical Office, the SOC housed exhibits consisting of rocket engines, nose cones, and scale models of satellites and rockets including the full-scale models outside the building in Rocket Park.

Along with Paul Satterfield, Falkowski was assigned the task of gathering material and working with artist and illustrators to develop exhibits for the SOC. A brochure from the era declared the SOC home to “some of the world’s most historic rockets and many other tools of space flight,” a place which allowed visitors to “share in the exploration of space.” Each year more than 200,000 visitors from Huntsville and around the world came through the doors of the museum to take in the latest and greatest advances in the space program.

Here are a couple additional photos of Evelyn in action with her trusty pointer.

Manned Spacecraft Center, Houston, Texas, 1966

Meanwhile, back in Houston at the Manned Spacecraft Center, we have Max Faget, himself, serving as a tour guide for a group of VIPs through the facility in 1966. Maxime Faget was a key figure in U.S. manned spaceflight history. He has many design and engineering credits to his name. Chief among them are responsibility for the blunt-body shape for the Mercury and follow-on space capsules, the concept of using launch escape towers, and one of the early designs for the Space Shuttle orbiter.

For more about Maxime Faget and his long career at NACA and NASA, including the Space Task Group, read NASA’s full biography, here.

Where Are They, Now?

If you are wondering, like me, if any of these models survived the passage of time, you might be surprised to find out that there are at least two still in existence and on (or nearing) public display.

One of these quarter scale LEM models is on display at the Historic Attractions museum in Roscoe, Illinois. It stands in their Space exhibit along with a replica Apollo Command Module and other space artifacts of that era. From the images I have found, the LEM model appears to have been well preserved in its original state.

The second surviving quarter-scale LEM model that I have located is currently in storage, but is planned for display, at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette Science Museum.

I reached out to the museum in Lafayette and was put in touch with the former curator of the planetarium. He, in turn, connected me with someone who worked at the South Florida Museum and Bishop Planetarium in Bradenton, Florida. The two of them were able to trace the history of the quarter-scale LEM model as far back as the mid-1960s, and through its journey through three museums in three states to where it is today. Along the way, the model was painted silver, the descent stage was covered in gold-colored foil for the twentieth anniversary of the Apollo 11 lunar landing, it had lights installed in its engines, and it served as a promotional display at a movie theater advertising the 1984 film, Starman.

This is certainly the most detailed history that I have heard for any Apollo model. It is typical, when purchasing contractor models from auction houses, to be given very little, if any, information about where the models have been used or who the models’ previous owners were, except in some rare occasions when the previous owner is widely known in the public sphere.

I am glad to know that some examples of this incredible model still exist. Some may see them as only models, but I view them as artifacts of the Space Age. While it may be true that they cannot be compared to actual spacecraft hardware, I think they speak to the larger effort to inform, educate, and inspire the public about NASA’s activities.

And, from an engineering history point of view, it is well worth preserving as part of the story of the Lunar Module’s design evolution. While this LEM model does not depict the final ‘as flown’ configuration, it does represent a key moment in history when Grumman engineers reimagined their first prototype ‘bubble’ design into something much more practical. In that one 1963/1964 concept revision, they completely revamped the design and came up with nearly all of the breakthroughs that made it into the final design. I think without those design changes, Apollo may not have been as successful.

Merch of the Month

Moonshot 1970: Moments to Touchdown Acrylic Print

Even if you don’t have space for a quarter-scale LEM model, you can still hang this high-quality wall art in your Rocket Office.

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SOCIAL IMPACT

Your purchase from Pixel Planet Pictures helps support and promote space-related STEAM organizations and initiatives that enable and inspire students and youth to learn, develop, and pursue passions in science, technology, engineering, arts, and math.

I’m Dave Ginsberg, the artist behind Pixel Planet Pictures and writer of Creating Space.

I am an artist and a creative engineer with a love for teaching and passions for spaceflight, astronomy, and science. My space-inspired art portfolio can be found at pixel-planet-pictures.com.

Do you know fellow Space Geeks who might enjoy Creating Space? Invite them into this space, too!

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Exploring the intersection of spaceflight history, pop culture, and space art.

In this edition of Creating Space I share a large model of one of Grumman’s intermediate designs for the Apollo Lunar Module.

Are you new to Creating Space? It’s the NERDSletter that explores the intersection of spaceflight history, pop culture, and space art. You can find this and all other posts at creating-space.art.

Model of the Month

My latest acquisition is a space contractor model of unusually large size, and it will take up a good amount of space in my collection.

This is a model of the Apollo Lunar Excursion Module (LEM) as it looked on Grumman engineers’ drawing boards while it was still in the adolescent phase of its preliminary design. As best I can tell, the timing of this particular design falls somewhere between July 1963 and July 1964.

The model stands 22 inches (56 cm) tall. Its span, measured diagonally across opposing footpads, is 32 inches (81 cm). It weighs nearly 17-1/2 pounds (8 kg). It is made of wood, fiberglass, and metal.

The model maker is unknown to me. Given its size, one might guess it was created for display in a museum. There is some evidence this model was used for educational displays and/or demonstrations, as you will read further on.

The configuration of this model bears close resemblance to the LEM depicted in the 1967 children’s book called Moonshot 1970. I featured my artwork of that LEM (seen here) as well as the book in previous posts.

There are a number of features that point toward the final design, some that remain from earlier configurations, and other features that represent newer concepts that did not get carried forward in later versions.

Gone is the squat ‘bug’ from 1962 with the bulbous head and tiny legs. This version’s ascent stage now has a front ‘face’ that should look more familiar to those who have seen the final as-flown configuration. The engineers continued to reduce the size of the windows, now relatively small triangles that standing astronauts could use with their faces closer to the glass than in earlier seated arrangements.

The descent stage has taken on an octagonal shape, as in the flown configuration, and sprouts four legs rather than five – this time with wide dish-like footpads. The LEM has grown in size and weight relative to Grumman’s original design. As a result, the landing legs have been redesigned to take the added loads. Note, also, that the forward leg is centered in front of the hatch.

The distinctive round front and top docking ports are still held over from earlier configurations.

Sighting #1

I have seen several photos of this model in the wild which provide some clues as to how it was used.

One such photo is this one found on eBay a number of years ago.

The press photo shows an educational display with a model similar to mine sitting on a realistically simulated lunar surface. Behind the LEM are display graphics – somewhat out of focus in this photo – one seeming to show an Apollo Command Module descending under three striped parachutes, and one with a diagram of a Saturn V propulsion system (as best I can make out the text). There also appears to be a model globe of the Moon, or perhaps a Command Module, just off the left corner of the photo.

Resting on the front footpad is a sign card that reads:

The date stamped on the back is “NOV 19 1966”. The original handwritten note on the back reads “Luna [sic] Excursion Module”.

Sighting #2

Here’s a photo of a model like mine being viewed by four gentlemen. I can identify two of them. Thomas Paine, third from left, was the NASA Administrator from March 1969 to September 1970. To his right is Dr. Hans Mark, Director of NASA’s Ames Research Center, from 1969 to 1977. He was Deputy Administrator from 1981 to 1984. This photo was taken on Dr. Mark's first day as Director of the NASA Ames Research Center.

Sighting #3

This press photo came with my model when I purchased it. It is from The Daily Telegraph, a British newspaper, dated February 25, 1966. It shows, according to the copy on the reverse side, Julian Rogers, a NASA scientist, on the left holding an example of the model with the assistance of L. J. Carter of the British Interplanetary Society. The photo was taken at the American Embassy in London. The model was part of a mobile exhibition on space research by NASA which toured schools in Britain.

Not one to shy away from going down a space rabbit hole, I decided to do some research into Mr. Rogers. It turns out that Julian Rogers was an educational demonstrator for NASA. After serving in the U. S. Navy, he joined NASA in 1963 and was known as a lecturer to schools and organizations in the United States and Europe. The literal vehicle for his lectures was the NASA ‘Spacemobile’.

Which leads me to ...

Sighting #4

The NASA Spacemobile was a traveling educational outreach program intended to foster interest and educate the public about space exploration. Lecturers, such as the aforementioned Julian Rogers, brought exhibits, models and other resources to communities throughout the 1960s in distinctively decorated vans.

Formally known as the Aerospace Education Services Program (AESP), the Spacemobiles were once an iconic part of NASA's outreach to the public.1

My school was never visited by the Spacemobile when I was growing up. But, I can tell you that if I saw the Spacemobile and the ice cream truck both coming down my street, I would definitely be running toward the Spacemobile.

Here we see a model like mine at a Spacemobile presentation along with some other very impressive models doing their part to excite and inspire young minds about spaceflight.

As a collector of such models, I can’t help but wonder if some of those other models might one day come up for sale at a future auction. For instance, I think that Command/Service Module would look pretty good next to my LEM.

Or ... why not get the combined set?

In the Room When History Was Made

Models like this one, depicting a point in time in the early development of the spacecraft that permitted those first small steps on the Moon, are great examples of how engineering designs evolve as they go from concept to refined final products. They exemplify the type of engineering I devoted my career to.

Finding these models is a thrill for me, especially when they are within buying range. The photos showing them in context give the experience added depth. They were “in the room” when history was being made. They may have been viewed or handled by some of the people who made that history happen. And, with a little research, they can introduce me to others whose names may be somewhat less prominent in the historical record.

Merch of the Month

Moonshot 1970: Moments to Touchdown Acrylic Block

Admit it, this lunar module acrylic block would look great on your desk. It’s the next best thing to having a giant model. ;-)

SHOP NOW

SOCIAL IMPACT

Your purchase from Pixel Planet Pictures helps support and promote space-related STEAM organizations and initiatives that enable and inspire students and youth to learn, develop, and pursue passions in science, technology, engineering, arts, and math.

I’m Dave Ginsberg, the artist behind Pixel Planet Pictures and writer of Creating Space.

I am an artist and a creative engineer with a love for teaching and passions for spaceflight, astronomy, and science. My space-inspired art portfolio can be found at pixel-planet-pictures.com.

Do you know fellow Space Geeks who might enjoy Creating Space? Invite them into this space, too!

Share Creating Space

Did you miss a post? Catch up here.

If you enjoyed this article please hit the ‘Like’ button and feel free to comment.

Leave a comment

All images and text copyright © Dave Ginsberg, unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved.

Exploring the intersection of spaceflight history, pop culture, and space art.

In the previous edition of Creating Space, I took a look back at some historical concepts for recovering and reusing booster rockets and spacecraft. This time, I review how SpaceX got started and the progress they have made, and as an added bonus I bring you along for a very special visit to the Falcon booster refurbishing facility at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Are you new to Creating Space? It’s the NERDSletter that explores the intersection of spaceflight history, pop culture, and space art. You can find this and all other posts at creating-space.art.

Remarkable Recoveries

As I wrote in the last post, the road to rocket reusability can be traced back to the 1950s. Engineers conceived of a variety of creative ways to recover and reuse booster rockets and spacecraft. Very few of those concepts crossed the boundary from idea to reality. But, in recent years, there has been a renewed thrust toward realizing that dream. Of the companies that have tried and succeeded in recovering their booster rockets for reuse, SpaceX was the first to be widely successful at doing it.

While Creating Space focuses mainly on spaceflight history, it is worth talking about the remarkable success SpaceX has had in recovering and reusing its rockets. Say what you will about their CEO, one cannot deny that they have turned the space launch industry on its head, obliterating many of the preconceived assumptions about what was impossible, or at least out of reach.

SpaceX has, over time, been increasingly successful in recovering its rocket parts for rapid reuse. They began by landing their first stages tail first on autonomous drone ships in the middle of the ocean.

Stop and read that sentence again and pause for just a moment to appreciate what an unbelievable string of words that would have been, on so many levels, to someone growing up in the early space age.

Now watch the video. It may seem somewhat normal now, but I remember seeing this for the first time and my brain was trying to make sense of a rocket appearing to lift off (or on) backwards!

Then, they succeeded in flying those same first stages back to their launch sites and making pinpoint landings on pads with ‘X’s marking their spots. You’ve got to hand it to SpaceX – they know how to do things with style.

The drone ships have those same Xs, too, by the way, as if some pirate’s treasure was resting beneath on the ocean floor.

As if these previously-thought impossible feats were not incredible enough, SpaceX’s next trick was to land the boosters TWO AT A TIME! I will freely admit to being gobsmacked when I first witnessed via the live video stream dual autonomous landings of the first Falcon Heavy boosters to be recovered in this way. And, yet, it is a testament to SpaceX’s ingenuity and tenacity that achievements like this somehow seem so matter-of-fact and expected, now. By the way, as these two boosters were being recovered, the third, central, booster of the Falcon Heavy was heading toward a successful landing on a drone ship at sea.

When not launching Crew Dragons, Falcon 9s are put to good use sending satellites into Earth orbit. Such unmanned payloads require fairings to protect them from the onslaught of air resistance during ascent through our atmosphere.

For a short time around 2020, SpaceX was catching the parachuted payload fairings in ship-mounted nets. (Again, think about what that sentence might have sounded like to someone in the 1960s ... even if they might have been familiar with this music.)

Eventually, they determined that merely letting the fairings land in the water and lifting them aboard the boats by crane was sufficient.1 The refurbishment consists of washing away the salt water and repairing any minor damage that may have occurred during flight and splashdown. SpaceX is a true learning organization, and they are continually making improvements to their design and manufacturing processes. As a result, the cost and time for refurbishment is continually being reduced.

Seeing How the Sausages Get Refurbished

In the June 2024 issue of Creating Space, I shared my trip to the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation’s (ASF) U. S. Astronaut Hall of Fame celebration events in Cocoa Beach, Florida. As a special part of the itinerary, SpaceX hosted a tour of ‘HangarX’, their refurbishing facility on the grounds of the Kennedy Space Center.  

It was a truly spectacular experience. During my engineering career I became used to seeing large passenger airplanes being assembled in the factory. And, although I have seen various rockets up close in museums, I had never been inside an active rocket factory.

It was in the lobby of HangarX that I received my first taste of the true scale of the Falcon 9 hardware. Here I am standing 6-foot 4-inches tall next to one of the grid fins that help guide the first stage to its designated landing point.

I had previously seen one Falcon 9 launch in person from several miles away, and many more via online videos. I don’t know why, but I had imagined the Falcon 9 as being much smaller. My erroneous perceptions would further be corrected once I entered the factory.

HangarX is divided into two main refurbishing sections. The ASF tour group was first brought into the area where SpaceX refurbishes their payload fairings. We were not permitted to take photos within the factory, so I will be relying upon photos sourced elsewhere.

This SpaceX photo gives a true sense of the scale of the Falcon 9 payload fairings. They are listed on the SpaceX website as being 43 feet (13.1 m) in height and 17.1 feet (5.2 m) in diameter.

As a rough comparison, here is a 48-foot long (14.6 m) Meridian 459 Motoryacht, just five feet longer than a Falcon 9 payload fairing.

In the massive high bay, the fairings paradoxically seemed like small bathtub boats. At the same time, I felt dwarfed by the huge work volume as well as the fairings. If the fairings were bathtub boats, then I was a tiny toy passenger at the dock.

It is a good thing I didn’t know what was coming up next, because I would have been chomping at the bit to get out of the room full of fairings and into the next section they brought us into. The sight to come turned out to be a jaw-dropper for me.

We were led to the back of the fairing bay and through a small people-sized door to a deceivingly small corridor that I thought would lead us past some work offices. But, then my eyes were captured by what I saw looming above me.

This photo of a Falcon Heavy, consisting of three Falcon 9 first stages, will give you a good impression of what I saw. Looming overhead were the business ends of four or five Falcon 9 first stages, all having flown several times as evidenced by the dark soot covering them. Each stage was packed with nine Merlin engines looking like cannons ready for a serious fight, ready to pour a total of 1.71 million pounds (7,600 kN) of thrusting force out the back end when fueled and back on the launch pad.2

My immediate reaction to what I saw was exactly like Hayley Arceneaux’s on her Inspiration 4 flight when they opened the hatch to the cupola.