Martian Rendezvous - circa 1959
formerly 'Orbiting Mars' by Frank Hettick - 2003

25 Signed and Numbered Limited Edition Prints
Printed as a 13" x 19" borderless paper print - or
as a 15" x 30" image on artist's fine white canvas

Below: Detail of print image

The dream of space travel and exploration of the solar system took a great leap forward in the 1950's with the publication of photo-realistic illustrations that pictured man's conquest of space.

This scene is meant to capture that look and feel of those early space artists like Chesley Bonestell, Rolf Klep, Fred Freeman that interpretated the hard math and physics and put to paper the dreams of such engineers and scientists as Robert Goddard, Werner von Braun, Willy Ley, and just a decade or two later, thousands of NASA personnel that would put men into Earth orbit and then on the Moon - a prelude to accomplishing and continuing our dreams of space travel and exploration.

The nuclear-powered 'Mars-Liner' pictured here floats above Mars prior to a landing on the Red Planet and is reminscent of those early interpretations of how man might accomplish such feats. This view reflects much of what we surmised at the time of how Mars and it's inner satellite, Phobos, might appear close-up.

The methods and equipment believed to be the answer to man's exploration of space and other planets some fifty-years ago may appear somewhat fanciful now a half-century later - but those earlier theories, the math, and the physics necessary to accomplish man's dreams proved to be a solid foundation.

And those romantic views of needle-nosed, winged space-craft encouraged generations of young scientists and engineers to take up the challenge of sending man to space, to the Moon, soon to Mars, and someday to other planets, even to other star systems.

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