Space Artist Robert McCall dies
McCall put his "stamp" on the moon.
Although Robert McCall never got to space himself (something he passionately hoped to do), some of his artwork did make it there. Stamps he designed were canceled on the lunar surface by the Apollo 15 crew.
McCall died February 26. He was 90.
His artwork will always be a part of our popular space culture. In addition to designing a number of postage stamps, his artwork appeared on the poster for the movie, 2001: A Space Odyssey. (That big “wheel” space station: his! But similar to many from earlier visions, including von Braun’s space station in Colliers in the 1950…illustrated by Chesley Bonestell.)
In the 1980′s, McCall applied to become a NASA space traveler when the space agency was planning to send up civilians. But that program was canceled when Christa McAuliff was killed in the Challenger explosion.
Still, McCall did get to ride the open cage elevator to the Faith 7 Mercury spacecraft with astronaut Gordon Cooper. Pretty darn cool, if you can’t actually go into space.
