Spaceship Retrospective

"If two wings are good, four must be even better.

Nothing says science fiction, especially Golden Age science fiction, like a spaceship -- that and a scantily clad blond woman. But for this retrospective we will confine ourselves for the most part to the spaceship and leave the scantily clad blond woman for another time.

The whole point of most of these illustrations was to sell magazines, but to young, impressionable minds they invoked the limitless possibilities of space travel.

I hope you enjoy these illustrations as much as I do.

We have had a couple of Artist Retrospectives featuring 1950’s artists, namely, Chesley Bonestell and Jack Coggins, both of whom had an enormous influence on the popular concept of the spaceship, but here we will be considering spaceships over a much longer period, back as far as 1929 for the spaceship from Fritz Lang’s The Woman in the Moon,

to the cover illustration by Robert Mc Call of Arthur C. Clarke’s short story Sunjammer, which appeared in Boy’s Life in 1964, a magazine familiar to anyone who was a Boy Scout.

In between we have an illustration from the book Across the Space Frontier, published in the early 1950’s.

Along with the illustrations I am including such information as I have, but for some, for example the title illustration, I have no information at all, except the strong suspicion that it is a pulp science fiction magazine cover illustration from the 1930’s.

The Woman in the Moon was a German film that came out in 1929 and was an inspiration to the early German rocketry experimenters. It featured the first use of the countdown, intended by the filmmaker as a device to increase suspense, that is now a integral feature of every rocket launch.

We know quite a lot about the spaceship skimming the moon’s surface. The spacecraft was designed by Wernher von Braun as a prelude to an actual landing on the moon. The fact that the caption for the illustration that appeared in Across the Space Frontier actually names the craters the crewmen are photographing leads me to suspect that it was painted by Chesley Bonestell, a stickler for astronomical accuracy. Many more illustrations are available online, including the original sketch of the around-the-moon spaceship, the three-stage ferry rocket, and the moon rocket, as they appeared in von Braun’s sketchbook. Just put “Wernher von Braun” and “spaceship” in your favorite web browser.

The illustration by Robert McCall is interesting in that several different solar sail designs are depicted. This is the cover painting. Several more appear inside the magazine. Robert McCall is a wondrously prolific artist who probably is best known for his murals in various places, including the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum. Arthur C. Clarke’s story appeared later under another title in an anthology.

Ever since the movie When Worlds Collide came out in 1951, I have been fascinated by spaceships under construction. This one has the classic 1950’s design with four fins tipped by four pods. The fact that the rocket is an empty shell concerns me a little, as does the fact that there are several rather substantial buildings in close proximity to the launch site.

The use of trains to bring construction materials to the launch site is interesting and certainly typical for the time.

Here is an illustration that reminds me of the movie The Shape of Things to Come, from 1936. It is based on the H. G. Wells novel of the same name. In the movie, a giant cannon serves to launch the space vehicle, a throwback to Jules Verne that really doesn’t make any sense. H. G. Wells should have known better.

Here the three astronauts in white spacesuits!?! are being cheered by a group of well-wishers before beginning their space journey. Fortunately for them, this spaceship actually is a multistage rocket, not an artillery shell.

Here is a space plane that looks like a 1950’s jet taking off from Cape Canaveral and heading for space.

This illustration is the very visualization of speed, although the five-pointed stars kind of spoil the effect. Can’t make out much about the planet, except that there seem to be craters.

I suspect it is from a comic book.

Here’s an illustration that does include a blond woman – and a rather determined-looking man who resembles John Beloushi. This one points up a common flaw you see in spaceship illustrations. Based on the location of portholes, the ratio of payload to fuel is reversed to what it would be in reality. Space travel requires reaction mass, and reaction mass requires space to store it.

Looking at Star Wars spacecraft I sometimes wonder what kind of super fuel propels them, but part of the price for wonder is a suspension of disbelief, and fantasy spaceships are no exception.

I can't conclude this retrospective without commenting on the title illustration. On its face, it is a depiction of a "Space Ark" with the animals filing on board "two-by-two" -- without human supervision. Looking closer we notice the fins are in groups of four -- if two wings are good, four must be even better. We know this is an end-of-the-world scenario from the beached ocean liner in the background. In addition, we notice the soldiers in blue, looking suspiciously like Union soldiers from the Civil War, battling fear-crazed civilians trying to rush the ship -- almost all of whom are wearing hats!

This begins to make sense when you recall that When Worlds Collide, written by Philip Wylie and Edwin Balmer, came out in 1933, featuring many dramatic elements that were, I assume, later depicted in the illustration. The novel was subsequently made into a movie by George Pal that was released in 1951and featured concepts and artwork by Chesley Bonestell.

We have included a photogallery so you can enjoy the illustrations in their original resolution in a separate window.

Click on Thumbnail below to see enlarged image.

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