The

orb

that

launched

a

thousand

ships

This is the most famous piece of astronomy art ever done.

"Saturn seen from its satellite Titan. Since Titan is large and known to have an atmosphere, the presence of water (frozen) was assumed. The sky would be blue, not black. Saturn is in new phase, 760k miles away."

Bonestell, working with a special effects camera in Hollywood, had to know how things would look from such-and-such a distance in the viewer. He soon began thinking seriously about, in the words of Willy Ley:

..."if Titan is so and so many miles from Saturn, and Saturn is so many miles in diameter, with the plane of the rings inclined so and so many degrees, what will be the result?"

The result is this image. And it launched the fascination of scores of thousands of men and women and children, of all ages. It launched the book that started a phenemenon, too, The Conquest of Space, and it has inspired space artists right up until today. Traveler, stop here and reflect.