NASA has released new designs for its ongoing series of space travel posters that lend the universe’s worst vacation spots an undeniably retrofuturistic appeal.
Visions of the Future offers graphic design tributes to the Grand Tour, the Mars Exploration Program, and the discovery of Enceladus’ icy jets as seen in these vibrant posters created by brothers Don and Ryan Clark of the Seattle-based design studio Invisible Creature. The designers write on their blog that their grandfather Al Paulsen was an illustrator and graphic designer at NASA for more than 30 years.
The Voyager mission (above) took advantage of a “once-every-175-year alignment of the outer planets for a grand tour of the solar system,” NASA writes. “The twin spacecraft revealed details about Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune—using each planet’s gravity to send them on to the next destination. Voyager set the stage for such ambitious orbiter missions as Galileo to Jupiter and Cassini to Saturn. Today both Voyager spacecraft continue to return valuable science from the far reaches of our solar system.”
NASA
Seeking to understand whether Mars “was, is, or can be a habitable world,” NASA writes, is the purpose of its Mars Exploration Program, adding that missions such as Mars Pathfinder, Mars Exploration rovers, Mars Science Laboratory, and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter “have provided important information in understanding of the habitability of Mars.” The poster above “imagines a future day when we have achieved our vision of human exploration of Mars and takes a nostalgic look back at the great imagined milestones of Mars exploration that will someday be celebrated as ‘historic sites.’ ”
NASA
“The discovery of Enceladus’ icy jets and their role in creating Saturn’s E-ring is one of the top findings of the Cassini mission to Saturn,” NASA writes of the poster above. “Further Cassini mission discoveries revealed strong evidence of a global ocean and the first signs of potential hydrothermal activity beyond Earth—making this tiny Saturnian moon one of the leading locations in the search for possible life beyond Earth.”
High-resolution images of these and other space travel posters can be downloaded for free or purchased online.
