The Art that Launched a Thousand Rockets
Podcast |
Soonish
Publisher |
Hub & Spoke
Media Type |
audio
Podknife tags |
Society & Culture
Technology
Categories Via RSS |
Documentary
Science
Society & Culture
Technology
Publication Date |
May 14, 2019
Episode Duration |
00:34:12

The adjective “visionary” gets thrown around a lot, but it’s literally true of Chesley Bonestell and Arthur Radebaugh, the two illustrators featured in this week’s episode. Both men used their fertile visual imaginations and their artistic skills to create engaging, influential depictions of human space exploration and our high-tech future. Their work was seen by millions of magazine and newspaper readers throughout the 1940s, ‘50s, and ‘60s—boosting public support for space exploration and industrial R&D at a critical time for the U.S. economy. Now, both men are the subjects of documentary films.

Chesley Bonestell was born in San Francisco in 1888, survived the earthquake and fire of 1906, and went on to become an accomplished and high-paid architect, artist, Hollywood matte painter, and illustrator of book and magazine articles. From the mid-1940s onward, he specialized in painting stunning views of space vehicles and views other otherworldly locations like the Moon, Mars, and the moons of Jupiter and Saturn. He lived to see humans set foot on the Moon in the 1960s and visit the gas giants via robotic probes in the 1980s, finally passing away in 1986.

Arthur Radebaugh lived from 1906 to 1974 and built on his early career as an illustrator for Detroit-based advertising agencies to become a “funny-pages futurist,” producing the syndicated Sunday comic strip Closer Than We Think for the Chicago Tribune—New York News Syndicate from 1958 to 1963.

In this episode we meet Douglas M. Stewart Jr. and the other producers of Chesley Bonestell: A Brush With the Future, a 2019 documentary about Bonestell, as well as Brett Ryan Bonowicz, maker of Closer Than We Think, a 2018 documentary about Radebaugh. And we hear from veteran science journalist Victor McElheny, who lived through (and documented) the era when Bonestell and Radebaugh were creating their visions of space and the future.

The episode argues that futurist art, done well, can become a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy. It can teach consumer and citizens what to want and expect—whether that’s moon bases or self-driving cars or talking refrigerators—and it can inspire at least few people to become the scientists and engineers who actually go out and build those things.

For more background and resources, including images by Chesley Bonestell and Arthur Radebaugh and a full transcript of the episode, check out the full show notes at soonishpodcast.org.

Chapter Guide

0:21 Under the Golden Gate Bridge 1:18 A Glimpse Into the Future 3:56 How Come I Never Heard of Chesley Bonestell? 4:37 Meet Arthur Radebaugh 6:45 Round Table Interview with Douglas Stewart, Christopher Darryn, and Kristina Hays 9:43 Mars as Seen from Deimos 11:50 Chesley Bonestell: A Brush with the Future Trailer 13:30 Destination Moon 15:13 Working with Wernher von Braun 17:03 Commercial Instinct 18:03 Romantic Rockets 20:20 Midroll Announcement: Support Soonish on Patreon 22:09 Brett Ryan Bonowicz 25:12 Influencing the Jetsons 26:21 Extremely Fast and Incredibly Closer Than We Think 29:54 Imagining Catastrophe 31:21 Conclusion: Competing Styles of Visual Futurism 32:45 End Credits and Announcements

The Soonish opening theme is by Graham Gordon Ramsay. All additional music is by Titlecard Music and Sound.

Soonish is a proud founding member of Hub & Spoke, a Boston-based collective of smart, idea-driven nonfiction podcasts. Learn more at hubspokeaudio.org.

If you like the show, please rate and review Soonish on Apple Podcasts / iTunes! The more ratings we get, the more people will find the show. See https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/soonish/id1185234753?mt=2

You can also support the show with a per-episode donation at Patreon. For a limited time, contributors who sign up at the $5-per-episode level or above get a Soonish coffee mug! But act now, because after June 8, 2019, the coffee mug will only be available at the $10-per-episode level or above. Listener contributions are the rocket fuel that makes this ship go, so get on board now!

We need your ideas to make the show better. Please take a few minutes to fill out our listener survey at soonishpodcast.org/survey.

Give us a shout on Twitter at @soonishpodcast and sign up for our email newsletter, Signals from Soonish.

The adjective “visionary” gets thrown around a lot, but it’s literally true of Chesley Bonestell and Arthur Radebaugh, the two illustrators featured in this week’s episode. Both men used their fertile visual imaginations and their artistic skills to create engaging, influential depictions of human space exploration and our high-tech future. Their work was seen by millions of magazine and newspaper readers throughout the 1940s, ‘50s, and ‘60s—boosting public support for space exploration and industrial R&D at a critical time for the U.S. economy. Now, both men are the subjects of documentary films.

The adjective “visionary” gets thrown around a lot, but it’s literally true of Chesley Bonestell and Arthur Radebaugh, the two illustrators featured in this week’s episode. Both men used their fertile visual imaginations and their artistic skills to create engaging, influential depictions of human space exploration and our high-tech future. Their work was seen by millions of magazine and newspaper readers throughout the 1940s, ‘50s, and ‘60s—boosting public support for space exploration and industrial R&D at a critical time for the U.S. economy. Now, both men are the subjects of documentary films.

Chesley Bonestell was born in San Francisco in 1888, survived the earthquake and fire of 1906, and went on to become an accomplished and high-paid architect, artist, Hollywood matte painter, and illustrator of book and magazine articles. From the mid-1940s onward, he specialized in painting stunning views of space vehicles and views other otherworldly locations like the Moon, Mars, and the moons of Jupiter and Saturn. He lived to see humans set foot on the Moon in the 1960s and visit the gas giants via robotic probes in the 1980s, finally passing away in 1986.

Arthur Radebaugh lived from 1906 to 1974 and built on his early career as an illustrator for Detroit-based advertising agencies to become a “funny-pages futurist,” producing the syndicated Sunday comic strip Closer Than We Think for the Chicago Tribune—New York News Syndicate from 1958 to 1963.

In this episode we meet Douglas M. Stewart Jr. and the other producers of Chesley Bonestell: A Brush With the Future, a 2019 documentary about Bonestell, as well as Brett Ryan Bonowicz, maker of Closer Than We Think, a 2018 documentary about Radebaugh. And we hear from veteran science journalist Victor McElheny, who lived through (and documented) the era when Bonestell and Radebaugh were creating their visions of space and the future.

The episode argues that futurist art, done well, can become a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy. It can teach consumer and citizens what to want and expect—whether that’s moon bases or self-driving cars or talking refrigerators—and it can inspire at least few people to become the scientists and engineers who actually go out and build those things.

For more background and resources, including images by Chesley Bonestell and Arthur Radebaugh and a full transcript of the episode, check out the full show notes at soonishpodcast.org.

Chapter Guide

0:21 Under the Golden Gate Bridge 1:18 A Glimpse Into the Future 3:56 How Come I Never Heard of Chesley Bonestell? 4:37 Meet Arthur Radebaugh 6:45 Round Table Interview with Douglas Stewart, Christopher Darryn, and Kristina Hays 9:43 Mars as Seen from Deimos 11:50 Chesley Bonestell: A Brush with the Future Trailer 13:30 Destination Moon 15:13 Working with Wernher von Braun 17:03 Commercial Instinct 18:03 Romantic Rockets 20:20 Midroll Announcement: Support Soonish on Patreon 22:09 Brett Ryan Bonowicz 25:12 Influencing the Jetsons 26:21 Extremely Fast and Incredibly Closer Than We Think 29:54 Imagining Catastrophe 31:21 Conclusion: Competing Styles of Visual Futurism 32:45 End Credits and Announcements

The Soonish opening theme is by Graham Gordon Ramsay. All additional music is by Titlecard Music and Sound.

Soonish is a proud founding member of Hub & Spoke, a Boston-based collective of smart, idea-driven nonfiction podcasts. Learn more at hubspokeaudio.org.

If you like the show, please rate and review Soonish on Apple Podcasts / iTunes! The more ratings we get, the more people will find the show. See https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/soonish/id1185234753?mt=2

You can also support the show with a per-episode donation at Patreon. For a limited time, contributors who sign up at the $5-per-episode level or above get a Soonish coffee mug! But act now, because after June 8, 2019, the coffee mug will only be available at the $10-per-episode level or above. Listener contributions are the rocket fuel that makes this ship go, so get on board now!

We need your ideas to make the show better. Please take a few minutes to fill out our listener survey at soonishpodcast.org/survey.

Give us a shout on Twitter at @soonishpodcast and sign up for our email newsletter, Signals from Soonish.

This episode currently has no reviews.

Submit Review
This episode could use a review!

This episode could use a review! Have anything to say about it? Share your thoughts using the button below.

Submit Review