It was only 65 years ago that the very first human being went to space: on 12 April 1961, cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin (1934–1968) orbited the Earth in just under two hours before returning to the ground a global hero. Decades later, we are as entranced by space as ever, as evidenced by last week’s thrilling launch of Artemis II on its mission to the moon.
The dream of exploring space has haunted mankind for centuries. In Space Journal, Dallas Campbell sets out the radical thinkers and doers who launched us towards the final frontier, weaving together priceless archival memorabilia, revolutionary experiments and spectacular scenes to map both real and potential encounters with our celestial backyard. We spoke to Campbell about why we are so endlessly fascinated by space, and how the origins of space travel are rooted not in science, but in fiction and most importantly, in the imagination.
© KSC/NASA. Centre L–R: Lady Bird Johnson, former President Lyndon Johnson and Vice President Spiro Agnew watch the lift-off of Apollo 11, the first crewed lunar landing mission, from the Kennedy Space Center at 9.32 a.m. local time on 16 July 1969.
I’d like to thank NASA for kindly scheduling the launch of Artemis II (currently sling-shotting around the moon) to perfectly coincide with the publication of Space Journal: Art, Science and Cosmic Exploration. Judging by the huge amount of press coverage Artemis has received, the public appetite for grand space adventures hasn’t waned since our last epic moon adventure with Apollo over 50 years ago. Or since our own childhoods when all-things-space, alongside dinosaurs and ancient Egypt, vied for our attention.
What is it about human space that continues to fascinate? The sheer scale of it all? The eye-wateringly big numbers, the bum-clenchingly enormous costs, vast distances, wild statistics and endless lists of facts and figures? What about the giant orange rocket itself, awakened from a 50-year slumber like some mythical monster tearing a hole through the sky?
Above left: © JSC/NASA. Apollo 11 Mission image - View of moon limb, with Earth on the horizon, Mare Smythii Region / Above right: © NASA. One of the few photos of Neil Armstrong on the lunar surface.
Certainly, the images of the Earth and moon from space taken by the four astronauts aboard Artemis are a highlight. This time, iPhones have replaced the softer granular textures of the Hasselblad film cameras of yore; we now have digital updates of the familiar Earthrise image taken from Apollo 8 in 1968, and the Blue Marble photograph taken by Apollo 17 in 1972.
My favourite Artemis snap thus far was the happy crew gathered around a table suited and booted before the launch, being dealt hands of poker. Tradition has it that Reid Wiseman, the Artemis Commander, has to lose a hand to rid the mission of any bad luck. A reminder that space travel is full of quirks and superstitions and rituals. It has an almost quasi-religious filter: the chosen envoys (astronauts) don their ceremonial robes (spacesuits) and ascend heavenward to touch God’s divine handiwork.
[Space] has an almost quasi-religious filter: the chosen envoys (astronauts) don their ceremonial robes (spacesuits) and ascend heavenward to touch God’s divine handiwork – Dallas Campbell
Frontispiece to Francis Godwin's, 'The man in the moone', 1638. Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA (STC 11943.5)
The story of space travel in literature and art has always chimed with a deeper poetic truth that vibrates in that art-frequency that makes our bodies ring with a pleasurable awe when struck. It has been there from the very beginning: Laika, the beatified sacrificial space-dog; Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space returning to earth like a celestial prophet; Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, the Soviet founding father of rocketry, alluded to these transhumanist narratives throughout his work; his doodles in the margins show free-floating bodies tumbling through space, adrift from the cradle of Earth. And it’s there in the art of countless space artists who transported us to an imagined mythic-space long before we actually went there.
The story of space travel in literature and art has always chimed with a deeper poetic truth – Dallas Campbell
Chesley Bonestell’s vast cosmic vistas, planetary surfaces bathed in ethereal light, remind us how tiny and insignificant we are. One of my favourite chapters to write was the story of Mary Ward, an Irish Victorian popular science writer who lived her life through the microscope and the telescope. The beauty and intricate patterns of nature at both ends of the scale, she attributed to the hand of God: ‘Yes: these universes which are shown to us brightly or dimly, are still but a part of the Almighty’s works.’
© Lucien Rudaux, Sur Les Autres Mondes (Paris, Larousse, 1937). Rudaux.
For all its poetry, space travel has also revealed a new reality, a deeper understanding of nature as it is. The moon itself, once accepted as a perfect celestial orb, was suddenly unveiled by Galileo to reveal a rugged world with mountains and valleys and craters. A flawed world like ours. Heresy at the time and a reminder that space travel has always been political. The moon, like Greenland of late, has once again become a political prize in a new space race between America and China both seeking leadership at the high frontier, a frontier to be explored and conquered.
John F. Kennedy reminded us so eloquently that space was a new ocean to be sailed or a mountain to be climbed. We chose to go to the moon, a choice that reflects the grandest of our ideas played out in a universe of terrifying indifference.
Above left: Cover of Science Wonder Stories, 1/4 (1929). Courtesy pulpcovers.com / Above right: Jules Verne, From the Earth to the Moon (New York: Scribner, Armstrong, 1874)
More than anything, space is the backdrop to adventure. My own space gateway drug was a grey square flat plastic base from a 1980s space Lego set. I’m looking at it now. The columns and rows of round studs give way to an organic moulded sweeping ridge in the corner with two pleasing craters. It was the scene of countless space battles and stories. What Lego I had was embellished with shoe boxes and tin foil which became the lair for a giant marauding space rabbit called Jennifer.
John F. Kennedy reminded us so eloquently that space was a new ocean to be sailed or a mountain to be climbed. We chose to go to the moon, a choice that reflects the grandest of our ideas played out in a universe of terrifying indifference – Dallas Campbell
The human imagination and the creative process is really what’s at the heart of this book. It’s central to everything. The founding fathers of 20th-century rocketry, Robert H. Goddard and Hermann Oberth, were both motivated by Jules Verne’s space adventures. And Verne himself was inspired by earlier writers like Edgar Allan Poe, and back we go, back to the very beginning of writing. Modern space flight is built on a story as much as it is on scientific journals.
© MSFC/NASA. Mercury Project. Astronaut John Glenn enters the Mercury spacecraft, Friendship 7, prior to the launch of MA-6 on February 20, 1962 and became the first American who orbited the Earth.
There’re people you sadly won’t read about in the book. I really wanted to tell you about Galina Balashova and her beautiful Soviet space station interior designs. Or Ruth Ansel and Bea Feitler, the fashion magazine art directors who put Paul McCartney and Jean Shrimpton in two silver spacesuits for the April 1965 edition of Harper’s Bazaar. For political, economic and deadline reasons they didn’t make the cut. Damnit, I wanted to write a chapter about Douglas Adams. Next time. But I hope you enjoy reading about the people who are here. I hope their creative lives will take you on an interesting journey and that you’ll think about the cosmos as a place where minds from all backgrounds and times are free to wander.
Words by Dallas Campbell.
Space Journal: Art, Science and Cosmic Exploration is available now.
