Space art is near and dear to my heart
as I am an aerospace engineering major who enjoys creating art. Since I usually
do not have a lot of time on my hands, I tend to paint my engineering projects
to express my creativity. In the images below, you can see the two of my rockets
that I painted this quarter. This first one is a much smaller, off-the-shelf
rocket, while the second one is a rocket I designed and built for one of my
classes this quarter.
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| Off-the-shelf rocket I painted. |
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| The rocket and parachutes that I designed and painted. |
The other side of space art is, of
course, art inspired by space. Since space is the unexplored, new frontier, it
has captured the hearts of many. There is so much we do not know and so much
that is left to our imagination that we utilize artists to fill that
information gap. As artist B.E. Johnson put it, “art has been our first vehicle”
for human explorations. Before we landed on the moon, we relied on
photographers and painters for their version of the moon. Before the New Horizons
mission flew by Pluto, we only had artist renderings of the planet (NASA) . Mars, the red
planet, has captured our hearts and made its way into our lives via the book
and the movie, The Martian (Howell) . The Martian had
such an impact that many of us look to entrepreneur Elon Musk to lend us his
vision of colonizing the red planet (Robinson) .
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| Image of Pluto as captured by New Horizons |
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| Artwork by B.E. Johnson |
We are all fascinated by worlds
outside our own. Since space and space travel are such incredibly complicated
subjects, we look to others to experience it. Hence why NASA was so keen on
helping creators of the movie, The Martian (Bradley) . It provided NASA
with free publicity and, hopefully, more funding in the future.
Bibliography
Bradley, Ryan. Why NASA Helped Ridley Scott
Create ‘The Martian’ Film. 19 August 2015. Web. 26 May 2018.
https://www.popsci.com/why-nasa-helped-ridley-scott-create-martian-film-and-what-means-future-sci-fi-space-movies#page-2.
Howell, Elizabeth. From 'The Martian' to Mars:
How Hollywood Aids Space Exploration. 12 May 2017. Web. 26 May 2018.
https://www.space.com/36796-how-hollywood-supports-space-exploration.html.
Johnson, B.E. The Space Art. 2018. Web. 26
May 2018. https://imperialearth.com/.
NASA. New Horizons. 3 August 2017. Web. 26
May 2018. https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/newhorizons/main/index.html.
Robinson, Melia. Elon Musk wants to colonize Mars
with SpaceX — here's what he said it will be like as one of the first
residents. 11 March 2018. Web. 26 May 2018.
http://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-colonization-of-mars-sxsw-2018-3.
Images
Johnson, B.E. The Space Art. 2018. Web. 26 May
2018. https://imperialearth.com/.
NASA. New Horizons. 3 August 2017. Web. 26 May
2018. https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/newhorizons/main/index.html.
I love that you express your artistic tendencies through your aerospace projects by painting them. I think that's a wonderful outlet and a beautiful way of showcasing space technology and art as one product. The shark designs on your second rocket are well executed and playful and I enjoy the image you created with them. The wonderful connection you made to our dependence on art to fill the gaps on what we do not understand was amazing. I find it interesting how our imaginations can often times guess correctly what we expect to find, or be completely different than anything we could have imagined. I wonder if our imagination of the colonization of Mars will be as accurate as the book depiction. Hopefully NASA or even Elon Musk will get the funding needed to see this happen in our lifetimes.
ReplyDeleteHi, I really do agree with how art is the first vehicle for human exploration and art fills the gap of imagination. Also, thank you for showing your project! I really loved how you incorporated your creativity to your projects!
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