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Broadcasting the Moon landing on 20th July, 1969.

One of the greatest moments in history.

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Japanese artist, Shigeru Komatsuzaki’s wild illustration of space battles. Way before landing on the Moon.

His work encouraged and made spacecraft modelling popular around Japan too.

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"That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind."

Neil Armstrong

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Apollo 1′s disaster is one of the darkest moments in the history of science, and space flights.

In 1967 January, 3 honourable men got into a spaceship, the first mission of the Apollo-program, Apollo 1. They had no idea it will be their grave.

Apollo 11 wasn’t the first trial of NASA to reach the Moon: many missions had to fail before the final mission in 1969 that landed on the Moon. Most of these trials just failed due to minor obstacles and the crew had to turn back - but Apollo 1 is a bloody stain on the line of missions. They didn’t even get to take off. A cabin fire during a launch rehearsal test killed all 3 members: Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee burned to death within seconds. The error was doubtlessly from human failures, since the political pressure made the scientists speed up the launch and they didn’t pay attention to major details. This costed 3 lifes.

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Have you ever heard about Gemini 8?

Most of the people have never heard about the Gemini program, and it’s most iconic mission, Gemini 8, that almost ended in tragedy. It took off in 1966, three years before Apollo 11′s Moon landing, and the plan was to dock with a vehicle that is already in space - Agena spacecraft. The rendezvous happened without any issues, but something went terribly wrong.

The pilots, Neil Armstrong and Dave Scott almost died out in space due to an error that caused their spaceship to start rolling around in incredible speed. In the end, they were rolling with 1 turn per second! Scott passed out, but Armstrong could stay conscious and turn off the main control of the spaceship - this slowed down the machine and saved their lives. Could you remain conscious in a vehicle rolling 1 turn/second?

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I love experimenting with galaxy patterns.

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These interesting stamps are just a few of my grandfather’s enormous stamp collection. He started collecting in 1968, and since he was a postman he had easy access. As you can see, he collected stamps from all around the world - including Arabic countries, and even American ones! This was a big challenge, since we were part of the Soviet Union, and they tried to hide everything from us that happened in the West. It’s quite clear from his collection, that they illustrate predominantly Russian spaceships and astronauts.

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The next task was to write a 500 word critical analysis. Sadly I could not attend the class for it to be checked in person, but I did finish it anyway.

“The family of Christa McAuliffe, a member of the crew of Space Shuttle orbiter Challenger, as they console each other after witnessing the explosion of the spaceship on January 28th, 1986.

On 28th of January, 1986, a horrible tragedy shook the United States. The Challenger space shuttle exploded 73 seconds after takeoff from the Kennedy Space Center – killing all seven crew members on board.  The takeoff was broadcasted live in television, and hundreds of viewers followed the happenings personally near the Space Center – including the families of the crew members, along with Christa’s: Grace and Ed Corrigan, and their daughter Betsy.

Christa was a 37-year-old social studies teacher in New Hampshire, who was chosen as a civilian to join the crew of the Challenger to gain personal experiences from being in space. All of her students were watching the streaming of CNN, cheering for her – and they all witnessed the tragedy in real time. Her family, her students, her friends – they sat down in front of the television, or stood at the Space Center to watch their beloved one go for a thrilling and unforgettable mission as she enters space as a civilian, watched her space shuttle taking off, held each other with excitement. Then the smile froze on their face and shock took over their thrill as the spaceship blew up with a horrible sound and it’s pieces flamingly fell into the Atlantic Ocean – including Christa’s burned body.

That is definitely not what they expected to see that day. Not what anyone expected to see.

The takeoff of Challenger was paramount for NASA, eventhough many engineers advised not to let them into space. The main cause of the tragedy was a rubber O-ring seal, which failed to seal properly in cold and Challenger was set to take off in January at a critically cold weather. This caused the explosion of the fuel tank in the shuttle. Engineers tried to convince NASA to delay the takeoff, but they didn’t listen to him: they had to prove to the world that they hold the situation in their hands and nothing can go wrong. They were pushing the Space Shuttle program so aggressively, that there was no way of delaying the mission – they had nine successful flights with the Challenger beforehand, and they thought there was no chance of failing this time. Delaying a mission, or even failing one would’ve proven that NASA is not capable of flying regularly and successfully.

Landing on the Moon was an urged, and utterly politically forced mission. But it was a successful mission. The Challenger was the absolute proof that NASA’s delicate work and honourable quest of discovering space is being corrupted by politics and diplomacy – which costed 7 innocent lifes in 1986.”

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We spent an amazing day in London! We visited the V&A, the Natural History Museum and the Science Museum. I had a wonderful time in all, but the most exciting was the last one. Literally the orgy of research sources. I could see a full-size copy of Apollo 11, real astronaut suits, and I could try on an astronaut glove too! I was so tempted to buy a poster in the gift shop, but in the end I only bought this cute little astronaut badge.

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Another space-like illustration I have done. I’ve been experimenting with watercolour and ProMarkers both, trying to find the best possible way to illustrate space clouds and stars. This is an early try with ProMarkers.

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A topic-based illustration I made this week. We got the RHS brief at the same time, so I made many illustrations about spending time outside, and spending time in space!