In celebration of fifty years of American space exploration, the U.S. Postal Service has released two first-class “forever” stamps created by multiple Hugo award winning artist Donato Giancola depicting Alan Shepherd’s historic flight on May 5, 1961 and NASA’s unmanned MESSENGER mission that investigates the planet Mercury.
Donato (who started school as an engineering student) has fostered a life-long love of space exploration. “It is an honor and thrill to have created these stamps celebrating space exploration and technology through individual achievements and the hard work of countless engineers and scientists… Astronauts like Alan Shepard have inspired a new generation to push the limits of our science and make the dreams of the future a reality. ”
Illustrators often feel an extra thrill when working for the U.S. Postal Service, as their work immediately becomes part of American history. Congratulations to Donato for this honor.
Thanks for posting the sketches, he does beautiful work. It’s great to see the behind-the-scenes thoughts from the artist.
That’s great! Indeed, a true creation of art!
In connection with this, to supplement everybody with additional information, space exploration is the utilization of astronomy and space technology to explore outer space. It is conducted both by human spaceflights and by robotic spacecraft. Although motley of criticisms are sometimes made, this won’t stop the explorers. Furthermore, Tiangong I is a boxcar sized module that China will attempt to put into orbit in August as the first piece of a proposed space station. China plans to open its station in 2020, the year that the International Space Station is scheduled to close.Moreover, Shengzhou VIII is scheduled to launch in October of this year. It will be an unmanned mission attempting to dock with the Tiangong 1 to pave the way for a 2012 manned docking. China also hopes to put a man on the moon by 2020. I read it here: Chinese space program blasts off as U.S. frizzles. You can check that out for a detailed information.