“When I was a boy, I dreamed of flying airplanes and I
built models from balsa wood. By the time I was in high
school, model airplanes of all shapes and sizes were
hanging by thin wires from the ceiling of my room.
Airplanes were the last things I would see before
falling asleep at night. I dreamed of flying higher than
the highest cloud and faster than the fastest wind."
-
Alan Bean
Apollo 12 astronaut, artist and explorer Alan Bean was the 4th man to walk on
the moon and the only astronaut to become an artist. His incomparable
experience of being an eyewitness of outer space inspired him to return to earth
and interpret and share it with others through art. Bean's paintings are
truly unique: each bears signature imprints of his moon boots and core sample
testing poles on the surface of the paint. Indeed, he even adds moondust
to his paints! This artist/astronaut's paintings are not just pictures:
they are truly historic documents of art.
more
biography
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Lunar Grand Prix
Limited Edition Giclée canvas
handsigned by the artist
“It seemed I
could run forever on the Moon and my legs would not get tired,”
recollects Apollo 12 moonwalker Alan Bean. “There was a reason,
however. On Earth I weighed about 150 pounds and the suit and
backpack another 150 pounds. On the Moon, with its one-sixth
gravity, my equipment and I only weighed a total of 50 pounds.
This light weight made me feel as if I were super strong - that
I could run forever.”
“Time on the
Moon was limited so we learned quickly how to run in a
spacesuit. The suit is hard to move at the knee and hip joints.
Moving about is most readily accomplished by keeping the legs
relatively stiff and using mostly an ankle motion. It feels and
looks as if you are dancing on tiptoe. If I could bring that
one-sixth gravity field back to Earth, I could win the Boston
Marathon―my legs would only have to carry 25 pounds.”
Limited Edition Giclée canvas
handsigned by the artist
Apollo 16,
launched on April 16, 1972, was the fifth mission to land on the
moon the first to land in a highlands area. Commander John Young
and Lunar Module Pilot Charles Duke spent almost three days on
the moon and brought back 94.7 kg of lunar samples.
“I painted
Astronaut John Young at work collecting samples,” says artist
and Astronaut Alan Bean. “He had tools to dig, drive, hammer,
rake, and drill; and bags to collect and identify each sample.”
Creating the
suite of tools and containers for the moon samples was not as
simple as it first seemed. Engineers had to worry about
compromising future scientific analysis with contamination from
the equipment. Also, space suit gloves were bulky, movement of
the thumb and fingers were hard to coordinate, and there was
almost no sense of touch. The specialized tools on Apollo 16
allowed the two astronauts to accomplish their mission. As
Charlie Duke reported to Earth during his second extra-vehicular
activity (EVA), “John and I found a use for every tool we’ve
got.”
Limited Edition Giclée canvas
handsigned by the artist
The work of
artist Alan Bean conveys the sense of space travel not only
through subject and color but also texture. The tools that once
helped him explore the moon, now help him put the moon’s stamp
on many of his paintings. Prior to painting the image, Bean
covers the painting’s surface with a texturing material. He then
uses exact replicas of his Moon boots to make footprints across
this surface that are just like all the Apollo boot prints
remaining on the moon today. Next he uses the same geology
hammer he worked with on the Apollo 12 mission to dig into the
painting’s surface. Finally, a sharp edged bit from one of the
core tubes is used to make round indentations in the surface.
Limited Edition Textured Giclée canvas
handsigned by the artist
“We choose to go to
the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the
other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard,
because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our
energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are
willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which
we intend to win, and the others, too.”
“You feel this way when you're finally on the Moon!” says artist and
Apollo 11 astronaut Alan Bean. “It’s the culmination of all you’ve
studied and worked for since you were a little kid.
“John has jumped straight up about 3 feet or so. On Earth, this would
have been impossible because John weighs 160 pounds and the suit and the
backpack weigh 150 pounds, but on the Moon everything (including John)
weighed only one-sixth as much. Someday there will be athletic contests
on the Moon, maybe even Solar System Olympics and many astonishing
records will be set.”
Apollo 16, April 16-27, 1972, was Young’s fourth space flight but his
first lunar exploration. Young was Spacecraft Commander accompanied by
Astronauts Ken Mattingly and Charlie Duke. Young and Duke set up
scientific equipment and explored the lunar highlands at Descartes in
the Lunar Rover.
“When I was
a boy, I dreamed of flying airplanes and I built models from balsa wood,”
says artist Alan Bean. “By the time I was in high school, model airplanes of
all shapes and sizes were hanging by thin wires from the ceiling of my room.
Airplanes were the last things I would see before falling asleep at night. I
dreamed of flying higher than the highest cloud and faster than the fastest
wind. As I grew older, the dream grew stronger. It followed me as I
completed flight training, became a jet pilot flying off aircraft carriers
and when, as a test pilot and then as an astronaut, I trained to rocket to
the Moon. And in my painting, as I look out over the ‘magnificent
desolation’ of the lunar surface, youngsters on Earth are building model
rockets, dreaming of flying higher than the Moon and faster than a shooting
star.”
Apollo 17 Astronauts Gene Cernan and Jack
Schmitt are doing some “low-tech” body work on their high-tech Lunar Rover.
During their first moonwalk Gene accidentally hooked the hammer he carried
in his right leg pocket onto the Rover’s right rear fender extension,
knocking it off. He fixed it temporarily by taping it on with duct tape.
Unfortunately, somewhere on their lunar drive the tape gave way and the
fender extension fell off and was lost for good.
“An American Success Story shows Astronaut
John Young in April of 1972 as he stood proudly on the moon,” says artist
Alan Bean,“but for a while, it didn’t look like he and Charlie Duke would
even land. Orbiting the moon in their lunar module preparing for descent, a
call came reporting an oscillation in the backup steering system. They knew
that this might force them to return to earth as soon as possible. If the
systems failed, the Apollo 16 and her crew would orbit the moon forever.
Immediately, mission control was
alerted. Could they determine if oscillations would prevent the backup
steering system from doing its job? Records were searched and tests
conducted, in less than six hours the results were in: the mission could
continue. We all breathed a collective sigh of relief. John Young would say
later,“It was a cliff-hanger, but the ground crew really came through,
putting us right back in the ball game.”
I have painted Dave Scott, a good friend
and skilled explorer, at the pinnacle of his astronaut career. In his own
words, “We went to the Moon as trained observers in order to gather data,
not only with our instruments on board, but also with our minds. Plutarch, a
wise man who lived a long time ago, expressed the feelings of the crew of
Apollo 15 when he wrote ‘the mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire
to be lighted."
“Here we are, humans of planet Earth,
standing on our only moon. Getting there wasn’t easy; in fact, it took about
four hundred thousand of us giving our best efforts. None could do it alone
but together we found a way to achieve this seemingly impossible dream. When
the time is right, we will be ready to continue our noble quest to expand
humanity’s reach. Our children and our children’s children will have to
continue the search, each succeeding generation moving a little farther out,
discovering more answers and even greater questions. The Universe awaits our
audacious human spirit. Be patient...we are coming.”
“This relaxed, impressionist astronaut
image is one of my favorites,” says Bean. “I felt just like this so many
times on the moon—even though I didn’t have time to stop and ‘assume the
position.’ I think it takes a certain attitude of cockiness to be an
astronaut, and it’s hard to show those emotions when I am behind the gold
visors.”
The Apollo program was not only about
getting to the moon and back, but making the best possible scientific
observations once there. "Do we take test pilots and teach them geology or
do we take geologists and teach them to fly?" was the question. The answer,
in typical NASA fashion, was to create a team of both. This image of Apollo
17 Commander and skilled naval aviator Eugene A. Cernan handing yet another
sample bag to Lunar Module Pilot and Doctor of Geology Harrison "Jack"
Schmitt on the Taurus-Littrow Valley floor, represents the epitome of this
exploration philosophy. On December 13, 1972, when Gene and Jack left the
moon, they carried with them 240 pounds of lunar samples-more than any other
mission could boast. Image size: 25 1/4"w x 161/2"h, published from the
artist's original acrylic painting. 550 signed by the artist and
consecutively numbered.
The moon’s lack of atmosphere provided the
ideal conditions to confirm what Galileo Galilei had concluded centuries
before, as both hammer and feather, dropped simultaneously, contacted the
moon’s surface at the same time.
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