All Systems Go Painting

This painting, available at Foolproof Contemporary Art in Denver, was inspired by NASA's Gemini space missions of the early 1960s. The name Gemini was chosen because there are two astronauts on each mission, whereas the Mercury missions only had one and the Apollo missions had three. These missions built up the skills needed for the upcoming Apollo lunar landing missions. For example, it was in Gemini missions that American astronauts first did "space walks" by leaving the spacecraft. It was Gemini astronauts who first docked two spacecraft in orbit. I love this image of Neil Armstrong taken just before his Gemini launch because he looks so calm and focused, despite being just about to speed into orbit on a massive, modified balistic missile. I believe he was chosen to be the first man to walk on the moon in Apollo 11 partly because he proved himself to be such a cool character in the Gemini program. I painted this image with acrylic on canvas. I enjoyed sneaking some extra color into his sterile, engineered environment. I'm excited to see the upcoming moon missions which will finally take the first woman and person of color to the moon's surface.