Alan Bean paintings, Apollo stuff

 

 

 Andy and I watched the Artemis II launch last week, which was exciting, and the subsequent splash down.  We thought it was pretty cool that the orange and blue suits the astronauts wore were made locally by the Clark company, just as they did for the original Apollo flights. 

 A while ago I was really into the Apollo missions, reading lots of books on the subject, watching the Tom Hanks HBO series and some great documentaries. 

I also got really into Alan Bean's paintings.  Bean was the fourth person to walk on the moon, he was the third man on the Apollo 12 mission.  He went into space again as a part of Skylab, but his time in space made him appreciate his artistic heart, and he went into painting full time after retiring from NASA.

 

Title:  "HELLO UNIVERSE!!"

 

The title of this painting:  "Is there anybody out there?!" 

 

 A few years ago, the kids got me this absolutely incredible book of Alan Bean's paintings - AND he SIGNED IT! (Not to me... because by this point he had died... but he signed it to this lady named Emmaline, and it's possibly she has also died because I can't imagine she'd want to get rid of it... ) but  anyway- many thanks to my lovely family for the beautiful gift.

I enjoyed these, for what it's worth:

For All Mankind (1989)

Composed of actual NASA footage of the missions and astronaut interviews and music scored by Brian Eno, the documentary offers the viewpoint of the individuals who braved the remarkable journey to the moon and back. While compiling the material for the film, Reinert went through more than six million feet of film of these historic moments.

 

The Last Man on the Moon (2014)

The story of Gene Cernan, the last person to walk on the moon, on December 14th, 1972.

** Apollo 11 (2019) 

**  This one is just phenomenal, it's made up of previously unseen footage, developed from film canisters frozen in NASA's archives for decades.  In fact, I gifted the blu-rays to a few people. 

Just beautifully done.  Recommended

 Armstrong (2019)

A biographical documentary about the life of Neil Armstrong, narrated by Harrison Ford.  It highlights his impressive military fighter pilot career, his ability to stay calm under immense pressure, and his endearing humility - which became the reason he was chosen to be the first man on the moon over Aldrin.

  In a recent interview with the Artemis II astronauts, one person said "You don't know what we go through up there, you just want to go home..." and that echoed the same sentiments the Apollo pilots expressed.  Many of them felt a crushing sense of loneliness and desolation, "the second we got out there, I realized I just want to be back on Earth with my family."

Definitely takes a special kind of person to withstand the physical and psychological tolls of all that.  (I don't do well with turbulence, so pretty sure space travel is out of the question haha :D )

⭐

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♫ ♪ 

Pink Floyd "Dark Side the Moon" (full album)