NASA Creates Retro-Futuristic Travel Posters
With eight new exoplanets recently discovered in the magic “Goldilocks” zone of potential habitability (not too hot, not too cold, etc) comes renewed fervor that we humans may someday colonize other planets. To celebrate that adventurous spirit, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab designed some fun retro-style travel posters. Distributed by the fictitious Exoplanet Travel Bureau, there are three designs, which are all available to download for free.
The three posters depict the virtues of traveling to places with names like Kepler-186f, HD 40307g, and Kepler-16b. Kepler-186f orbits a cooler, redder sun than our own, leading NASA to speculate that any plants would be more red than green. Featuring two space-suited explorers and a white picket fence, Kepler-186’s poster boasts the tagline, “Where the Grass is Always Redder on the Other Side!”
Kepler-16b orbits two stars and the travel poster lures future tourists with the come-on: “Where Your Shadow Always Has Company.” The exoplanet with the clunkiest name—HD 40307g—has twice the volume of Earth, giving it eight times the gravity. The Exoplanet Travel Bureau figures this would be a mecca for adrenaline-fueled skydivers.
Maybe someday in the far future, these futuristic posters will seem as quaint as billboards from the 40s and 50s touting the new freeways as “Highways in the Sky!” Either way, the playful nature of these posters coming from NASA themselves shows the adventurous spirit of exploration is still alive and well.
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Too bad the posters were posted as raster images in TIFF format when they appear to have vector-based origins. Publishing as PDF with vector artwork would have yielded much higher quality.
Glad to see NASA has discretionary spending accounts, again. How do I get in on that?
Don’t you worry, Doug. I think NASA, even you, can afford to create a few posters.