Fallen Astronaut
Sign in to savesculpture of an astronaut on the moon
Key facts
- Artist
- Paul Van Hoeydonck
- Year
- 1971 ( 1971 )
- Medium
- Aluminum
- Dimensions
- 8.9 cm (3.5 in)
- Location
- Hadley Rille , Moon
via Wikipedia infobox
Described at
Fallen Astronaut | Collectie | Mu.ZEE
Wist je dat er een kunstwerk ligt op de maan? Het is een aluminium beeldje van 8,5 cm gemaakt door de Belgische kunstenaar Paul Van Hoeydonck. Astronaut David Scott nam het mee met de Apollo 15 in augustus 1971. Het ...
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Encyclopedic overview
Fallen Astronaut is a 3.5-inch (8.9 cm) aluminum sculpture created by Belgian artist Paul Van Hoeydonck. It is a stylized figure of an astronaut in a spacesuit, intended to commemorate the astronauts and cosmonauts who have died in the advancement of space exploration. It was commissioned and placed on the Moon by the crew of Apollo 15 at Hadley Rille on August 2, 1971, UTC, next to a plaque listing 14 names of those who had died up to that time. The statue lies on the ground among several footprints.
The crew kept the memorial's existence a secret until after completing their mission. After public disclosure, the National Air and Space Museum requested a replica of the statue. Controversy soon followed, as Van Hoeydonck claimed a different understanding of the agreement with the astronauts and attempted to sell up to 950 copies of the figure. He finally relented under pressure from NASA, which had a strict policy against commercial exploitation of the US government space program.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Fallen Astronaut” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.