Moonship  

    With the developments of rocketry during World War II, the possibility of spaceflight finally seemed like an actual possibility.  For the very first time a book describing the realities of spaceflight stirred up a great deal of interest.  In additions to Bonestell’s excellent illustrations, Willy Ley gave such a convincing explanation of the details of spaceflight that Arthur Clarke was reported to have said “It is probably destined to fire many imaginations and change many lives in the years to come". 

 

    In the book was one spaceship.  It was designed at a time when Science believed that an atomic powered rocket would be the way we would achieve space travel. This design was a beautiful, swept-winged, single stage, atomic engined spaceship.  It was, in many ways, like the German A4-b, a winged variant of the German V2 rocket of 1945. 

 

    This one illustration of that single spaceship, illustrated by Chesley Bonestell got more people interested in the possibilities of spaceflight than anyone could have possibly imagined.  In it, he shows men descending out of an airlock, down a ladder to explore the moon’s surface while the Earth hangs overhead. 

 

    The fact that it is a winged rocket was not lost on the many enthusiastic followers of what would become the new generation of science-fiction shows on TV. 

 

    Manned by such heroes as "Buzz Cory" and "Tom Corbett", it and similarly designed spaceships seemed to point the way toward the future, clearing a path for unlimited adventures in outer space.

 

To learn more about the Moonship see below.