Tag: Space Junk

index of sculptures 1988 to 2024

Endeavor (Apollo15)

2006
Bas-relief in salvaged wood #34, 70 x 185 x 14cm.
Private collection, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

More ‘space junk’:

Vostok

2006
Bas-relief in salvaged wood #33, 130 x 130 x 14cm.
Private collection, Wassenaar, Netherlands.

About Vostok

Vostok / Восток was a series of space craft built by the Soviet Union. Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first man in space on April 12th 1961 in Vostok-1. The Vostok program carried eight men into space until it was replaced in the late sixties by Soyuz. Amazingly, Soyuz spacecraft are still in use today 45 years later.
(source: http://wikipedia.org/wiki/Vostok_1 )

Юрий Гагарин/ Первый из первых ч 1

More ‘space junk’:

index of sculptures 1988 to 2024

Sputnik

2006
Bas-relief in salvaged wood #32, 230 x 200 x 18cm.
Concordia Collection, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

Laika / Лайка (1969)

About Sputnik

Sputnik-1 / Спу́тник-1 was the first man made satellite. The 58 cm (23”) diameter polished metal sphere beset with four external antennas was launched into orbit on October 4th 1957. It could be seen and its radio pulses could be heard all over the world. The Russians’ unexpected space-tech savvy triggered the Space Race and set in motion a whole range of technological and scientific development. Traveling at over 8 kilometers a second, Sputnik-1 took 96.2 minutes for each orbit. It continued to transmit its bleep-bleep signal until its batteries ran out on October 26th. By the time it fell from orbit three months after launch, it had traveled about 70 million kilometers.
(source: wikipedia.org/wiki/Sputnik)

The first living creature to orbit the Earth was a stray dog from the streets of Moscow named Laika. The mongrel was trained with two other dogs, and was eventually selected to occupy the Soviet spacecraft Sputnik 2 that was launched into space on November 3, 1957. There was no chance of surviving the trip because the technology to de-orbit had not been developed yet. The purpose of the experiment was to see if humans could possibly endure the extreme force of being shot into space and if they could function in weightlessness.
(source: wikipedia.org/wiki/Laika

Спутник-2. Лайка.

More ‘space junk’:

index of sculptures 1988 to 2024

Lunar Orbiter

2006
Bas-relief in salvaged wood #31, 120 x 121 x 12cm.
Collection of Jeroen Princen, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

Apollo 11 bootprint (1969). photo by NASA.
‘One of the first steps taken on the Moon, this is an image of Buzz Aldrin’s bootprint from the Apollo 11 mission. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the Moon on July 20, 1969.’
(source: grin.hq.nasa.gov/…GPN-2001-000014)

About Apollo 11

Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong became the first humans to walk on the Moon in 1969. Much of the mission was broadcast live on television and was followed by millions at home. Apollo 11 launched from Cape Kennedy at 13:32:00 ut on July 16, 1969 and left Earth orbit after 2 hr and 33 minutes. They reached lunar orbit at 75 hr 50 minutes Ground-Elapsed-Time (GET). At 80:12 get, the service module propulsion system was fired to correct the orbit, each orbit now taking two hours. At 100:14 GET the Lunar Module was undocked after a full systems check. They fired the Lunar Module descent engine at 101:36 get and the ‘Eagle’ landed at 102:45 get.
The first action on landing was to prepare the Lunar Module for launch. They had a meal, but a scheduled nap was postponed at the astronauts’ request. At 109:24:19 GET Neil Armstrong took his first step on the moon. The astronauts then carried out their planned program of activities. They deployed the Solar-Wind- Composition experiment and collected a huge amount of lunar material. They took panoramic photographs of the region and closeups of lunar surface material. They deployed the Laser-Ranging-Retroreflector and the Passive-Seismic-Experiment-Package and collected two core-tube samples of the lunar surface. After about 2h 15mins of lunar surface activities the astronauts reentered the Lunar Module and took some sleep.
Ascent began at 124:22 GET after which they re-docked with the command spacecraft Columbia, which was piloted by the third member of the mission Michael Collins. Trans-earth coast needed only one of four planned midcourse corrections. The Command Module reentered the Earth’s atmosphere at a velocity of 36,194 feet per second (11,032 meters per second) and landed in the Pacific Ocean, where the astronauts were picked up by the recovery ship USS Hornet.
(source: NASA SP-214, Preliminary Science Report) 

Apollo 11 Saturn V Launch Camera E-8

Apollo11: Lunar Landing July 20, 1969

More ‘space junk’:

index of sculptures 1988 to 2024

Pod (Apollo space capsule)

2005
Bas-relief in salvaged wood #30, 105 x 100 x 10cm.
Concordia Collection, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

More ‘space junk’:

index of sculptures 1988 to 2024

Tin Can (Friendship7)

2005
Bas-relief in salvaged wood #29, 110 x 70 x 10cm.
Concordia Collection, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

Tin Can was the first space themed bas-relief and the first relief to be fitted with a large image on the back. The reason for this was that the work was intended for ‘de Aanschouw’ gallery, a display built into the facade of the Aanschouw cafe in Rotterdam that had hosted more then a thousand mini exhibitions until it closed in 2023 . The image on the rear of Tin Can was a NASA photo of astronaut John Glenn.

Astronaut John H. Glenn Jr. dons his silver Mercury pressure suit in preparation for launch of Mercury Atlas 6 (MA-6) rocket. Januari 20, 1962. Photo: NASA.

About Friendship 7 and Mercury-Atlas 6

The Mercury-Atlas 6 mission, conducted by NASA on February 20 1962, was piloted by astronaut John Glenn, who performed three orbits of the Earth, making him the first U.S. astronaut to orbit the Earth. It reestablished NASA and the US as strong contenders in the space race with the Soviet Union. The USSR had launched Sputnik, the first spacecraft, in 1957, and Yuri Gagarin was the first human in space in 1961. After Glenn’s flight the space race shifted its focus towards the Moon.
(source: wikipedia.org/wiki/Friendship_7)

Image above: Glenn Suits-Up for Launch [1962]
photo by NASA. ‘Astronaut John H. Glenn Jr. dons his silver Mercury pressure suit in preparation for launch. On February 20, 1962 Glenn lifted off into space aboard his Mercury Atlas (MA-6) rocket and became the first American to orbit the Earth. After orbiting the Earth 3 times, Friendship 7 landed in the Atlantic Ocean 4 hours, 55 minutes and 23 seconds later, just East of Grand Turk Island in the Bahamas. Glenn and his capsule were recovered by the Navy Destroyer Noa,
21 minutes after splashdown.’
(source NASA: grin.hq.nasa.gov/…GPN-2000-001027)

Video: Friendship 7, Full Mission, over 5 hours worth of original video and audio.
Credit: Lunarmodule5

More ‘space junk’: