Happy World Cosmonautics Day, comrades! On the 50th anniversary of the first manned space flight by astro-gent Yuri Gagarin, we’d like to share with you fantastical vintage illustrations from a sixties tome The Stars Are Awaiting Us by A. Sokolov and first Soviet space-walker A. Leonov. The book began with an account of Leonov’s actual mission and illustrations of his cosmic showboating and then spins off into the captivating “future.”
Minimalist space stations are constructed by astronauts in micro-rockets! Humans settle down and get industrious and increasingly cozy on the Moon! The illustrator’s flights of fancy get increasingly intergalactic and psychedelic with abstract physics, gaseous alien predators and anti-matter, oh my! Until, finally the narrator asks, “Why don’t we space-jump into the anti-world?” Why not, indeed. Check out our gallery of paintings that defined a trend in Soviet space-art, topped stamps in Cuba, and still deserve their cult following.
Courtesy A. Sokolov, A. Leonov
Courtesy A. Sokolov, A. Leonov
Courtesy A. Sokolov, A. Leonov
Courtesy A. Sokolov, A. Leonov
Courtesy A. Sokolov, A. Leonov
Courtesy A. Sokolov, A. Leonov
Courtesy A. Sokolov, A. Leonov.
Courtesy A. Sokolov, A. Leonov
Courtesy A. Sokolov, A. Leonov
Courtesy A. Sokolov, A. Leonov
Courtesy A. Sokolov, A. Leonov
Courtesy A. Sokolov, A. Leonov
Courtesy A. Sokolov, A. Leonov
Courtesy A. Sokolov, A. Leonov
Courtesy A. Sokolov, A. Leonov