Poster Boys (and Girls)
Astronauts show a lighter side in their unofficial crew posters.
- By Rebecca Maksel
- AirSpaceMag.com, July 08, 2011
Courtesy Sean Collins and NASA.
Collins’ 2001 creation for the STS-98 shuttle crew began the “fun poster” tradition. The crew had been asked to make a safety poster for the space shuttle work force, and astronaut Marsha Ivins decided to think outside the box. “It was Marsha’s idea for the crew to wear leather,” says Collins, “and she asked me to paint barbed-wire tattoos on everyone.” While the image was shot against a plain background, Collins searched the Internet for graffiti (“making sure there weren’t cuss words in it”), and added the trash bags. “All of a sudden, everybody’s loving it, and ordering extra prints,” he says. “The original run was probably 200, and we wound up printing something like 10,000 copies. And then the policy came out—no more 'joke' posters. Maybe they were afraid it made the astronauts look bad. But then that policy went away because the poster was so popular.”
From left to right are STS-98 crewmembers Marsha Ivins, Robert Curbeam, Ken Cockrell, Mark Polansky, and Tom Jones.
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Comments (4)
Is Frank De Winne looking a little pensive? Perhaps he has just remembered what traditionally happens to red-shirt crew members.
Posted by Bruce Thompson on July 20,2011 | 03:48 PM
Awesome! So glad to see a human side of these heroes and a sense of humor to boot!!
Posted by Brad on July 21,2011 | 08:16 PM
Regarding the Atlantis 125 poster, Scott Altman was the Navy Tomcat pilot that provided the in-flight middle finger in Top Gun.
Posted by dbarak on September 9,2011 | 10:50 PM
Exists also for the following crews
STS-46 Spaghettis all over astronauts
STS-54 Enterprise Bridge photo
STS-55 German traditional costumes photo
...and many more...
Posted by Yves on May 3,2013 | 03:27 AM