Ad Astra per Aspera - Cosmosphere, Huchinson KS
Posted by: Telomere
N 38° 03.904 W 097° 55.267
14S E 594640 N 4213583
88 square feet of artistry commemorates spaceflight exploration.
Waymark Code: WMT1K2
Location: Kansas, United States
Date Posted: 09/09/2016
Views: 2
'Ad Astra per Aspera' took 19 artists three years and over 4000 hours to complete. The motto means 'To the stars through difficulties', adopted in 1861 as the Kansas State Motto, and in this context forms a memorial to the hard work of those who created and operated the space flight program in the United States, and those who lost their lives in the effort.
The window itself incorporates the motto, the United States flag, Kansas wheat, as well as artistically designed images of a spacewalking astronaut, stars, planets, galaxies, rockets, the space shuttle on takeoff, and the mission patches of three attempts which ended in disaster - Apollo 1, Challenger and Columbia. Those missions are also memorialized by artifacts actually built into the pane.
The design and creation were directed by Randall and Pamela Rayer, of Rayers Bearden Stained Glass in Wichita, in collaboration with Kansas Cosmosphere staff. The finished product is displayed in the visitor gallery at the Cosmosphere in Hutchinson, Kansas.
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