fallen astronaut
The First Work of Art on the Moon
The crew of Apollo 15 placed a small aluminum sculpture on the moon to memorialize those astronauts had died
” When that science is space exploration, clarity involves acknowledging the serious danger of the enterprise and the possibility of death. Around 20 astronauts have lost their lives in the line of duty. In 1971, that number was 14, and in honor of those space travelers, the crew of Apollo 15 placed a small aluminum sculpture on the moon along with a little plaque bearing the names of those fourteen men:
The fourteen astronauts and cosmonauts listed on the memorial are Charles Bassett (died Feb. 1966 in an aircraft accident), Pavel Belyayev (Jan. 1970, disease), Roger Chaffee (Jan. 1967, Apollo 1 fire), Georgi Dobrovolsky (Jun. 1971 re-entry pressurization failure), Theodore Freeman (Oct. 1964, aircraft accident), Yuri Gagarin (Mar 1968, aircraft accident), Edward Givens (1967, automobile accident), Gus Grissom (Jan. 1967, Apollo 1 fire), Vladimir Komarov (Apr. 1967, re-entry parachute failure), Viktor Patsayev (Jun. 1971, re-entry pressurization failure), Elliot See (Feb. 1966, aircraft accident), Vladislaw Volkov (Jun. 1971, re-entry pressurization failure), Edward White (Jan. 1967, Apollo 1 fire), and C.C. Williams (Oct. 1967, aircraft accident). Journal Contributor Brian Lawrence notes that “unknown at the time, two of the original selection of 20 cosmonauts were also deceased before Apollo 15: Valentin Bondarenko (fire during training, March 1961) and Grigori Nelyubov (train accident/suicide, February 1966).” Further, Lawrence notes that, while no more astronauts died in active service until the Challenger accident, “Jack Swigert died in December, 1982 of cancer and another six cosmonauts died between Apollo 15 and Challenger (Benderov, Shcheglov, Sorokin, Kononenko, Varlamov and Ivanov). Another death in the same period was the backup Vietnamese cosmonaut Bui Thanh Liem.”
Two men are missing—cosmonauts from the Russian space program who’s deaths were unknown at the time, since the Russian space program was still quite secretive.
The sculpture was placed on the moon without much ceremony. In fact, it was somewhat of a secret. The NASA logs say:
David Scott – “We made a plaque for all the astronauts and cosmonauts that had been killed. And a little figurine, a Fallen Astronaut, and we put it right by the Rover. You can see it in the picture (AS15-88-11893). That was just a little memorial, in alphabetical order. In relative terms, we had both lost a lot and, interestingly enough, we didn’t lose any more after that until Challenger. That’s what I was doing when I said I was cleaning up behind the Rover (at 167:43:36). Jim knew what I was doing. We just thought we’d recognize the guys that made the ultimate contribution.”
Afterwards, there was a bit of a kerfuffle about the sculpture. The Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum found out about it and asked for a replica to display. Then, one of the astronauts learned that the sculptor, Paul Van Hoeydonck, was planning on making more replicas and selling them. There was even an ad in the magazine Art in America for the sculptures:
Read more: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/there-is-a-sculpture-on-the-moon-commemorating-fallen-astronauts-358909/#hF4ZcLSJQQRGPJ1B.99
Ad in the magazine Art in America
a plaque commemorating fourteen U.S. astronauts and Soviet cosmonauts who had died prior to the flight of Apollo 15 in 1971. The original plaque was placed on the Moon's surface by Apollo 15 commander Dave Scott in August 1971, to accompany a miniature sculpture of a human figure.