Robert McCall

An artist, McCall enjoyed adventure, drawing and painting armored knights during his youth. The U.S. Air Force brought him to Cape Canaveral to paint rocket launches, and in 1962 NASA decided to hire several artists to capture the essence of the human space adventure. McCall was one of the first three artists to be invited to work there, and he not only accepted, he stayed for decades. A McCall painting of a still-under-construction space station in orbit was used in the movie poster for 2001: A Space Odyssey (below). He also designed many U.S. stamps; a set of one was canceled on the moon by the commander of Apollo 15. McCall was "the nearest thing we have to an artist in residence in outer space," the late Isaac Asimov said. McCall indeed wanted to go into space himself, and NASA put him on the list for a shuttle mission, but the idea of artist astronauts was abandoned after the Challenger explosion. He died February 26 from heart failure at 90. From This is True for 28 February 2010 Suggestions for further reading: The Cover-Up Exposed, 1973-1991 (UFOs and the National Security State, Vol. 2) by Richard M. Dolan Amazon Price: Customer Review: When the author spoke to me in Washington DC in April 2009 about this, the then-unpublished middle-volume of his planned three-volume history of the UFO phenomenon and its management by the "National Security State", he was pleased with the res...   NASA Apollo 11 Owners' Workshop Manual: 1969 (including Saturn V, CM-107, SM-... by Christopher Riley, Philip Dolling Amazon Price: $21.75 Customer Review: As a lifelong Apollo freak, I appreciate this book. It is technical and but not complicated. There are a lot of great pictures I haven't seen before.   Nasa: The Complete Illustrated History by Michael Gorn Amazon Price: $21.86 Customer Review: This is a great coffee-table book, and makes for great conversation. Got it for my dad for Christmas last year (2007) after finding out that he wanted to be an astronaut as a child. It's a large book, with a lot of really fascinating pictures. I c...   Nasa Northrop T-38, The: Photographic Art from an Astronaut Pilot by Story Musgrave, Lance Lenehan, Anne Lenehan Amazon Price: $32.97 Customer Review: This collection is a work of art as well as a salute to NASA's T-38 Talon Aircraft. I am a pilot and each page was a jaw dropping experience. Dr, Musgrave has captured, not only in breath-taking photography but also in 'from the heart with love' narr...   Lunar Impact: The NASA History of Project Ranger (Dover Books on Astronomy) by R. Cargill Hall Amazon Price: $15.61 Customer Review: Oh, wow! I had forgotton this project. I was in college when most of this project occurred. This project objective was to both take pictures of the lunar surface, send them back to NASA and then impact the lunar surface. These wewe unmanned, of cours...   Newsfeed display by CaRP

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