Contact Chris

01-053 "GO For Taurus-Littrow"
1999, acrylic on illustration board
original lost or destroyed

Finished in 1999, this painting was raced out the door without being photographed - hence the two-year delay in assigning it a part number in my image catalog. The rush was worth it; this painting would be unveiled at a show attended by Apollo 17's commander. Gene Cernan - and I was painting right down to the wire. I wanted to capture the view Cernan had of his landing site, the Taurus-Littrow valley, as it appeared during the last orbital pass before the lunar module Challenger fired its engine and dropped into the flats at lower center. Using a computer program, I accurately rendered both the Earth (which I enlarged a tiny bit for clarity) and the stars - you will find the twin stars of Gemini at center, and the sickle of Leo at the top. The bright star at the left is Procyon. I was more nervous about the landscape; who better to find a mistake than Cernan? When Cernan arrived at the event, he broke off in mid-sentence and launched across the room, hands of hips, and leaned to stare closely at the painting. Watching from a corner, I was anonymous and petrified. Cernan quickly put me at ease. "Man, you are really coming in!" he exulted, pointing at the painting. He then proceeded to name every tiny crater and fracture on the valley floor.

I was introduced, and learned that Cernan had not seen the stars at all; the mountains ahead had been far too bright to permit that, but he well remembered the Earth's placement and phase. I should mention that the subtitle to this painting is "the LMP may now look out the window"; Cernan had admonished his lunar module pilot Jack Schmitt to keep his eyes on the readouts as Cernan flew. Cernan signed the back of the painting for the gentleman who bought it, and amusingly, Schmitt did so later at another event. The painting's owner sent me a photo of Schmitt looking at the back of the painting, reading my subtitle with a grin. He remembers what it was like to be "go" for Taurus-Littrow. I hope my painting took both astronauts back, even for a moment.

Long after purchase, this painting was lost: accidentally discarded, or stolen. The painting 02-004 replaced it, and was essentially identical.

Chris Butler