PROJECT

About four years ago, we created a series of posters based on eight different robotic planetary exploration missions. Over time, we’ve had to re-print Voyager after being out of stock for more than a year. Sputnik has been absent from the catalog for a few months now, and we are also running dangerously low on copies of Cassini, Curiosity and Mars Exploration Rovers. Doing a run of four designs at 20"x36" all at the same time is quite costly. It could take months to just recoup the cost of production.

That’s where you come in!

OUR REFERRAL PROGRAM

Send traffic our way and we will reward your efforts

See the image below for the various reward levels. Choose between all eight missions for any of the posters and any of the five designs included in our campaign for the tee.

How does it work?

First, make sure you are logged into IndieGoGo or this will not work. Then use their share tools located next to the “BACK IT” button to send a tweet. The link in your tweet will include a unique ID. Then, when a friend reads your tweet and clicks through the link to contribute, you will be recognized as helping bring in the amount contributed by the referral.

You can also copy/paste your custom URL using the third share option labeled LINK. This way you can share it anywhere you like, not just on Facebook and Twitter. The link should look something like this when you copy it: https://igg.me/at/historicspacecraft/x/123456. The number at the end is your unique Indiegogo referral code.

Note: All referral rewards ship free in the US. Some shipping fees may apply for larger international packages.

Chop Shop Store

We already have our own line of space-themed t-shirts and we also design and sell for some of the best-known space exploration interest groups like The Planetary Society, Yuri’s Night, SETI and Icarus Interstellar. So we know from experience that real robots explorers are just as popular as fictional robots.

50+ YEARS OF ROBOTIC SPACE PROBES

With the success of the new Cosmos series, Juno at Jupiter, probes exploring comets and asteroids and New Horizons on it’s way to another Kuiper Belt object — the public is excited again about deep space exploration. Additionally, the age of the internet has made data from various past missions easily accessible to the masses. From all corners of the globe, amateur imagers are re-working old data sets with the power of modern computing and generating new looks at faraway places without ever having to leave the ground. 

Each of these missions represents the best of what human intellect can achieve and can also provide a nostalgic sense of pride. To many, Voyager was a big part living through the '80s with its tour of the outer solar system and Carl Sagan’s original Cosmos series. In the ’90s Galileo treated us to a thrilling tour of Jupiter and it’s exotic moons. Then Y2K served up Cassini at Saturn and three particularly robust rovers on Mars with two out of the three operating to this day. 

We have noticed over the last few years, that there have been some beautiful designs by various artists covering themes such as Earth science, manned space missions, the planets, and astronomy. However, designs that focused specifically on any particular robotic planetary missions seemed to be almost non-existent. When you do find something — the designs are generally data-driven. The likes of which might be expected to grace the walls of a high school science lab, but not hanging prominently in one’s own living room. Well, we want to change that and here is how we did it.

How were the missions selected? 

Planetary.org conducted a poll to select the most popular missions since Sputnik. The top eight choices were; Voyager, Cassini, Curiosity, Mars Exploration Rovers, Sputnik, New Horizons, Rosetta and Galileo. To thank the Society for all their help we also design one for LightSail 1 which was also used as the central reward in their own record-breaking LightSail Kickstarter campaign (funded on June 26, 2015). The 20x36" screen prints from that campaign disappeared within 40 minutes, but a few were recently discovered and made available for purchase from the official Planetary Society Store [chopshopstore.com/planetarysociety].

THE MANY REWARDS

20" x 36" Screenprints 

This is the central reward. Backers will be free to choose from 20"x36" screen prints for all eight missions (see images above) and the FAQs below for more about Screen Printing.

Poster #1: Voyager

Poster #2: Cassini / Huygens

Poster #3: Curiosity

Poster #4: Mars Exploration Rovers (Spirit & Opportunity)

Poster #5: Sputnik

Poster #6: New Horizons

Poster #7: Rosetta / Philae

Poster #8: Galileo

Each poster was screen-printed in a minimum of three colors by Vahalla Studios (best known for their work making show posters for bands like Phish, Wilco, Decemberists and many others).

Digital Prints

Shown above are examples of the digital prints. Voyager is shown at size MED (17"x22"), Cassini at SML (13"x19") and two examples of the uncut 5.75" x 10.5" TINY 3-in-1 prints. All digital prints are museum quality and printed on archival paper from Red River with CONE SYSTEM color inks.

The Complete Sticker Set

The whole series in a 3"x3" round format. Made of vinyl and good for indoor/outdoor use. See more at chopshopstore.com.

Voyager Grand Tour Sticker Sheet

While Pioneer did precede Voyager with new views of Jupiter and Saturn, Voyager gave humanity its first up-close view of nearly half the major bodies of the solar system. Set includes 13 kiss-cut stickers including Jupiter, Io, Europa, Ganymede, Callisto, Saturn, Enceladus, Titan, Uranus, Neptune, Triton, the Voyager probe itself and the legendary Golden Record! See more at chopshopstore.com.

4x6 Framed

A 4"x6" print framed and shipped ready to hang (or stand). Missions reformatted for this perk (so far) are Voyager (shown), Cassini, Curiosity & Sputnik. The frame is Ikea RIBBA and measures around 7"x9", includes plexiglass.

T-Shirts

All tees will be made available in styles for Men and Women and screen-printed on Bella/Canvas brand t-shirts. Sizes for kids can be made available if there seems to be enough of a demand.

Voyager T-shirt

Voyager 2 holds the record for most celestial bodies observed in a single mission and Voyager 1 became the first man-made object to enter interstellar space. See more at chopshopstore.com.

Curiosity T-shirt

The newest member of the robotic Martian community of surface rovers. Considerably larger than it’s cousins Opportunity and Spirit, MSL packs a larger diversity of tools to conduct it’s search for past and present life on the Martian surface. Making the Curiosity rover more of a mobile laboratory than merely a rover. See more at chopshopstore.com.

Something Incredible (the Saturn Tee)

Our first tee featuring Saturn. You would think we would have covered this ground considering it is the jewel of the Solar System. That and we are sure something incredible IS waiting to be known. See more at chopshopstore.com.

Above Earth T-shirt

Featuring 23 historic missions that explored near-Earth space both manned, unmanned and sometimes monkeyed or The missions are spirally arranged in chronological order, starting with Sputnik (the first man-made object to be set in Earth orbit) to Space-X’s Eagle module. See more at chopshopstore.com.

Beyond Earth T-shirt

Featuring 23 historic missions of the various nations that traveled beyond Earth orbit to explore our solar system. The missions are also loosely arranged according to their some of their most notable destinations. The design includes some of the earliest missions such as the Soviet Union’s Venera 7 which was the first probe to soft-land on the surface of another planet to one of the newest members Juno at Jupiter! See more at chopshopstore.com.

Beyond Earth Screen Print

An impressive large-scale print with the same design as noted above with the exception of featuring Sojourner instead of Curiosity and Ulysses in the place of Juno (printed before those successful missions had arrived). Print is two color gray inks infused with a metallic silver on a black sheet of 19" x 25" French, Speckletone 80lb paper. See chopshopstore.com for more.

THANKS!

We would in particular like to thank The Planetary Society for their involvement in this project. I myself joined the society at age 12 — soon after reading Cosmos from cover to cover. So I am honored to have the Society assisting or campaign in the way it has.

Also, a specific shout out to Mat Kaplan and Planetary Radio for coming up with the idea to crowd-source the most popular missions in the first place.

To Jeff (aka Kleptonaut also on Sound Cloud) for always creating music that is perfect for my Kickstarter projects even before I have conceived of them.

And thanks to you for considering our project. I hope we will be sending you a print or two or three in December.

FAQ

Know More About the Printing Process

You can see more in the FAQ section on this topic. We cannot link in that section so this is in addition to the screenprinting question.

We designed and programmed this site in 2004 for The Metropolitan Museum of Art which explains the four classic print methods. It is also worth boasting that it has a permanent home in the museum as an educational kiosk. To see Screen Printing click the last box to the right. [What is a Print?].