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01-054 "Home From the Sea"
1999, acrylic on illustration board

Although numbered as a 2001 painting, this actually dates from two years before; the delay is a result of my not having the art photographed before it sold, a rare and uncomfortable experience for me. However, the customer saw to it a photographer properly recorded the piece, and when this was done the image received a listing in my catalog. I was willing to rush this painting out the door, because it was to be premiered at an event attended by Apollo 17 astronaut Gene Cernan (image number 01-053 was rushed for the same reason). Cernan was quite impressed by the image, and I was very flattered by his choosing it to stand beside during some television interviews. An obvious expert, he was curious which splashdown this was. You might think it would be hard to tell, but the presence of the moon offers clues, as moon landings were timed to the lunar phase - and Apollo returned to Earth 4 days after the proper phase for a landing.

In this scene, the moon is waxing gibbous, and subtracting 4 days from that yields a crescent moon - and no Apollo ever landed on the moon at such a time, when the near side of the moon is primarily in darkness. Now, Apollo 8 did not land on the moon, and the phase happens to be about right - but the time and angle of the sunrise are wrong for that mission; so this scene seemed impossible. I quietly explained to Gene that this was for a project I am working on to illustrate the moon missions that were cancelled - he grinned, and said he figured I was up to something! This painting is one of my favorites, and involved a great deal of study of the command module to capture the details and re-entry damage thereon. Home from the sea of space, she looks a little worn, but shines like a jewel in the morning sun. An aircraft carrier and helicopters are fast approaching to assist the astronauts out of their spacecraft.

Chris Butler


Copyright 1994-2003 by Chris Butler
More of Chris Butler's art can be viewed at Novagraphics Space Art.