The Beautiful Art That Helped Inspire Space Travel

Chesley Bonestell was born long before the flight of the first airplane, and yet he’s well-known as the most influential people in aerospace art. The painter, designer and illustrator died the year of the Challenger disaster—1986—but not before witnessing humankind embrace space in much the way he’d dreamed.

You see, Bonestell not only helped to popularize manned space travel and inspire sci-fi art and illustration, his ideas directly influenced the way US space scientists imagined the future of space exploration from Earth’s orbit to the Moon and other planets.

Wernher von Braun, the father of the US space program once wrote that “In my many years of association with Chesley I have learned to respect, nay fear, this wonderful artist’s obsession with perfection. My file cabinet is filled with sketches of rocket ships I had prepared to help him in his art work—only to have them returned to me with pene­trating detailed questions or blistering criticism of some in­consistency or oversight.”

The following set of images shows a fraction of Bonestell’s very best works of art. They prove that he earned the title of “Father of Modern Space Art”.

Separation Over the Pacific

Source: Heritage Auctions

Saturn Viewed from Titan, c. 1952

Source: Heritage Auctions

Crashing the Unknown, AirResearch Mfg. ad, Aviation Week, August 21, 1950

Source: Heritage Auctions

Solar System

Source: Heritage Auctions

Rocket Ferry Leaving Mars, c. 1964

Source: Heritage Auctions

The Exploration of Mars, c. 1955

Source: Heritage Auctions

Orbital Rocket Airplane... Nova Zembla, c. 1976

Source: Forbes

Saturn-sized booster pushes interstellar expedition toward Earth orbit, c. 1964

Source: Forbes

Destination Moon (Pathé, 1950)

Source: Heritage Auctions

Chesley Bonestell designed the spaceship in the scifi movie When Worlds Collide (Paramount, 1951).

Source: Heritage Auctions

Source: Heritage Auctions

The Conquest of Space, book cover painting (New York, Viking, 1949)

Source: Heritage Auctions

Spaceships over Mars, Collier’s, April 30, 1954

Source: National Geographic

Collier’s March 22, 1952 “Man Will Conquer Space Soon”

Source: Horizons

Rocket to the Moon, Mechanix Illustrated, 1945

Source: Modern Mechanix

The Moon Lander, Collier’s, October 18, 1952

Source: Leo Boudreau

Orbital assembly, 1964

Source: X-Ray Delta One

Construction of a manned space station, 1949

Source: Leo Boudreau

Exploring Copernicus, Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction illustration, October, 1969

Source: Tom Simpson

Rocket ship tow test, Collier’s, March 14, 1953

Source: Horizons

Preparing for launch, 1956

Source: X-Ray Delta One

Man on the Moon, Collier’s, October 18, 1952

Source: Horizons

Mars expedition prepares for return flight to Earth, Collier’s, April 30, 1954

Source: Horizons

Aerospace artists previously in this series:

1. Attila Héjja – The Hungarian-Born Painter Who Immortalized America’s Space Program
   
2. Paul Fjeld – 13 Amazing Paintings of Space Based On Actual Missions
   
3. Robert T. McCall – 27 Paintings From the Most Famous Space Artist On Earth (And Off)
   
4. Davis Paul Meltzer – The Forgotten Space Artist Who Envisioned the End of the Space Race
   
5. John Conrad Berkey – The Space Artist Who Perfectly Painted All Our Cosmic Dreams