Hi-rez lunar astronaut portrait scans

Avi sez, "The Air & Space Museum in DC now hosts a comprehensive exhibition of Apollo 12 astronaut Alan Bean's artistic record of the Moon voyages. The museum has released high resolutions scans of two of Bean's amazing portraits of Armstrong and Aldrin."

Armstrong portrait

Aldrin portrait (Thanks, Avi!)

[#1 posted by Anonymous, July 20, 2009 3:27 AM]

I heard an interview with Alan on NPR. He actually cuts up his mission patches that are covered with moon dust and puts pieces of them in his paintings.

[#2 posted by Michael Smith, July 20, 2009 5:02 AM]

[Conrad - "Between Sharp and Halo, on the long run. We were loping across there and, all of a sudden you said, 'Something funny happened to my suit'."]

[Bean - "Sure did. I remember that."]

[Conrad - "Or pressure. You said something. And, you know, I'm looking. I didn't want to see you disappear like a balloon."]

[Bean - "(Laughing) You wanted to say good-bye."]

http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a12/a12.halo.html

[#3 posted by Anonymous, July 20, 2009 5:53 AM]

Great pictures! Unfortunately us peons can't download them for personal use:

"By accessing and using images on this site, you agree to the terms of the image use policy."

...which is...

"NEWS RELEASE IMAGE USE POLICY

The images on this site are provided to media representatives for purposes of news coverage only."

http://www.nasm.si.edu/events/pressroom/press_imageuse.cfm

- Andy

[#4 posted by Guysmiley, July 20, 2009 6:40 AM]

Those Apollo Lunar Surface Journals are a great read for anyone who's interested in the nitty gritty details of the Apollo missions, especially the ones that are annotated with explanations and links to images taken at each point in the transcript.

[#5 posted by Anonymous, July 20, 2009 6:48 AM]

This is not a portrait. It is a painting of a space suit.

[#6 posted by mkultra, July 20, 2009 7:30 AM]

It is interesting to see how colourful Bean's depictions of the lunar surface are, since we have always been told that it is a monochrome grey.

[#7 posted by Anonymous, July 20, 2009 11:12 AM]

The BBC recently did a wonderful documentary on the Apollo program called "James May on the Moon" in which James interviews Alan Bean and several other Apollo astronauts.

Preview here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmDrj2dPrTY

Torrent here:
http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/4969908/James_May_on_the_Moon__%28BBC_2009%29