The Black Vault

This man warms my heart. What a great and
wonderous spirit.

One area of art that is very underrated, and seems to only appeal to people in the aviation industry, is aviation and space art. This was a really nice tribute to him, who I have never herd of by name. Its an issue near and dear to my heart, all the art work of the space shuttle and early X-planes that both myself, and my Father, were part of. I loved seeing him painting the orange of the X-1 which my Father was a big part of that program as an Aeronautical engineer for Bell Aircraft. Most people do not know of the history of the X-1 beyond Yeager breaking the sound barriar in "Glamous Glennis". Or that there were actually 3 of the first X-1's made. That program extended well past Yeagers first feat into the 50's, into the X-1A, and X-1B and were not orange in color. The X-2 both were lost, none exist today, and I remember the Day Dad cryed when one of them was lost over Lake Onterio, killing the Bell Test Pilot, and a B29 crewman. All part of a problems called the "Ulmer Gasket Theory", that led to explosions on these X-planes due to failing gaskets with the fuels. Many of my Dads programs are in the Smithsonian, and depicted on Art like this. He would be very proud of that. Now the program I was devoted to is also heading for the Smithsonian and other museums, and artwork of this era to me is wonderful. For myself, I did not know he did some of the shuttle mission path designs, as you saw one of the Challenger patches, came from this artist. This was a very neat post, I really enjoyed it.

Greeney,

My son posted this today on facebook with a picture that I'm
not able to post here but this is the ironic state of what is
going on where he works. His cut off date is probably around
June and it remains to be seen where he will find a job. He is
a professional electrical engineer

I copied what he said to a friend from facebook.
btw the pic was Schwarzenegger and 50 cent.

"I work at the NASA facility in New Orleans. Space flight is slowing down, so they have been leasing the site to movie companies. Harrison Ford was just here also shooting his new movie, The Schwarzenegger movie will also have Slyvester Stallone, called "The Tomb". They film in pretty secure areas so the normal NASA folks don't wander over out of curiousity. But, would be cool to watch some of it."

My Company Rocketdyne is probably one of the things slowing down if you are at Marshall or Stennis. Definatly all the shuttle stuff. We have been a major player for the last 50 years there. Its very sad for me to watch. Your artist not only captures these programs, but also what he captures are the golden years of our space ventures. My Dad was lucky enough to have worked in some of Aviations golden years of development in the 40's and 50's. Wht they did was the definate forrunner to our space programs.