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"QUANTUM SHOT" #612
Link - by Avi Abrams

      We can not get enough of that stuff. The Future that never happened.
        The Past that kept dreaming and never woke up.

      Also read
      Part 2
      and
      Part 1

      We continue to update our extensive collection of the most inspiring and
      hard-to-find retro-futuristic images. As usual, we try to stay away from
      the well-known American pulp and book cover illustrations and instead
      focus on the artwork from some rather unlikely sources: Soviet and Eastern
      Bloc "popular tech & science" magazines, German, Italian, British
      fantastic illustrations and promotional literature - all from the Golden
      Age of Retro-Future (from 1930s to 1970s). Wait for images to load.

      We'll start with a line-up of neat planetary vehicles, envisioned for
      "Project Sword" series. Here is a Moon Bus, powered entirely by
      crude oil:

      
      
      
      (images
        via)

      You have to appreciate the lines of the "First Spaceship on Venus" (from
      the 1960 East Germany/Poland
      film):

      

      Curious how such a cool vintage-streamlined rocket might look on the
      launch pad? Check out these scenes from a Russian cult-favorite movie
      "Nebo Zovyot", 1960 (remade by Roger Corman as "Battle Beyond the Sun"):

      
      
      
      (images
        via)

      Life inside the space station (complete with a space kitten) from the
      Russian movie "Road To The Stars", 1957 -

      
      (more screenshots and info
        here)

      
      (left: "UFO" series; "Land of the Giants" vehicle is on the
        right)

      
      (left: screenshot from "Space 1999"; right: from "Journey To The Far
        Side Of The Sun" -
        via)

      
      (scenes from the German TV series "Orion Patrol" -
        via)

      
      (scenes from the Russian movie "Planeta Bur: The Storm Planet" - see
        the whole movie
        here)

      
      (Russian magazine covers from the 1950s and 1960s)

      Great vintage designs from the cover of Hunt Collins' novel "Tomorrow and
      Tomorrow" (Hunt collins is a pen name of Evan Hunter, better known as Ed
      McBain) - left image. A curious one-man space platform from the cover of
      "Weird", Oct 1971 - on the right:

      

      German rare sci-fi editions yield a peek inside a space port, spaceship
      maintenance and repair:

      
      (images via)

      
      (intense planetary exploration scene from "Operation Future" (ed. by
        Groff Conklin, 1961) cover - left. Right: "The Space Frontiers", novel
        by Roger Lee Vernon)

      Construction of the space dome on Mars (from "Dan Dare's Space Book",
      1954) - below left. And pretty ugly space suits (1952 model) shown on the
      right:

      
      (images
        via)

      Floating in a pretty crowded space, 1950s style:

      
      (fragment of the cover of "The War Against The Rull" by A. E. Van Vogt;
        image via)

      
      
      (images from the
        Vols Interplantaires, French space exploration futuristic edition)

      Perils of the Spaceways:

      
      (art by
        Alex Schomburg)

      
      (art by Ed Cartier, illustration to "Tradition" by J. McIntosh, Other
        Worlds, April 1952)

      Vintage Japanese movies also depicted pretty intense space exploration:

      
      (images
        via)

      Outrageous water-to-air launch jet from Gerry Anderson's UFO series (see
      some similar real life designs on our page
      Flying Submarines) -

      
      (images
        via)

      Great minimalist art from the Russian vintage book "The Flight To The
      Moon", 1954, showing the Moon Base:

      

      Here is another busy Russian Moon Base (from 1961) -

      
      (image
        via)

      Rare and gorgeous visions of space exploration from the Russian 1950 book
      "The Rocket":

      
      (images
        via)

      Pretty detailed art by Jack Coggins from "Rockets, Jets, Guided Missiles
      and Space Ships" (1951) -

      
      (images
        via)

      Fragment of the Grosset & Dunlap 1950 "Book of Model Spaceships": there is
      something from the vintage Westerns in this scene -

      
      (image
        via)

      "The Next 50 Years on the Moon" (by Erik Bergaust, 1974) states
      that sometime between 1980 and 1990 we will have a permanent Lunar colony:

      

      
      (German book covers in the 1960s-1970s)

      Of course, no retro-future space art collection will be complete without a
      mention of Frank R. Paul - the king of science fiction illustration during
      the Age of Wonder (1930s-1940s). Here is his "City on Mars", 1940, and
      "The Golden City on Titan", 1941:

      
      (images credit:
        Frank R. Paul)

      One more thing... do you suppose there is such a thing as a Retro Futurism
      Cute Overload? Well, the utterly adorable and infinitely cheesy picture
      below may just start the new category :)

      

      DON'T MISS PART ONE ->
      --
      AND PART TWO ->

      CONTINUE TO OUR RETRO FUTURE COLLECTION! ->




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YOUR COMMENTS::

6 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

I love the picture of the two astronuts in brown slacks and short back and sides.

Just because you're in space, doesn't mean you should let your sartorial standards drop!

___  
Anonymous Ajani said...

These illustrations are amazing!

I'm impressed.

___  
Anonymous kernel.net said...

haha I loved the picture about space perils, where aliens sneak behind the astronaut to kill him with hammers :D

___  
Anonymous Bendarr said...

Just a brief note. The last illustration was used in a book called "The Gods hate Kansas" written by Joseph Millard.

I've always loved that title for a SF book!

___  
Blogger Old Mr. Still Struggling with Ceaseless Chaos said...

That one painting, "Fragment of the Grosset & Dunlap...", is quite specifically of the Tom Corbett Space Cadet characters. I'm guessing it's Tom speaking and Astro running the wireless; & that might be wise guy Roger Manning in the space suit....

___  
Anonymous Things to do said...

Love those pics. They remind me of the classic sci-fi films and tv shows.

___  

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