May 30, 2008

Sonja Alexander
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1761
sonja.r.alexander@nasa.gov 

Keith Henry
Langley Research Center, Hampton, Va.
757-864-6120
h.k.henry@nasa.gov 

RELEASE: 08-135

NASA LUNAR ART CONTEST WINNERS ANNOUNCED

HAMPTON, Va. -- A fanciful vision of a lunar traffic jam won the first 
annual NASA Lunar Art Contest sponsored by NASA's Langley Research 
Center in Hampton, Va. 

A work by Justin Burns, a sophomore at the University of Memphis, 
depicts a cartoon-like motorcyclist on her air cushioned bike leading 
a long line of traffic in a tube stretching across the otherwise 
barren lunar landscape. A city under a dome stands in the background. 


"The Lunar Art contest allows students from the creative arts 
disciplines to become involved and excited about the nation's space 
exploration program. It also enables us to see the future from very 
different and important perspectives," said Richard Antcliff, 
director of Langley's Advanced Planning and Partnership Office. 

A total of 26 college and high school students from around the country 
entered the contest with paintings, posters, design packages, and 
sculpture. Judges rated the art on the basis of originality, 
creativity, artistic elements, and if the concept was valid for harsh 
lunar conditions. The contest encouraged university and high school 
art and design students to partner with science and engineering 
departments to create art representative of living and working on the 
moon. 

The goal is for students in arts, science and engineering to 
collaboratively engage in NASA's mission to return humans to the moon 
by 2020, and eventually journey on to Mars and other destinations in 
the solar system. Such collaboration may generate new ideas for 
living and working in extra-terrestrial environments, resulting in 
more successful long-duration space missions. 

The top four college-level and top two high school-level entries will 
be exhibited this summer at Langley, the Virginia Air and Space 
Center in Hampton, Va., and at NASA Headquarters in Washington. The 
entries also will be posted on the NASA website 

Second place in the college group went to "A busy day on the moon," by 
Johnathan Culpepper, a senior at Medgar Evers College in the City 
University of New York. Lann Brumlik and Corey DiRutigliano, a team 
of graduate design students from University of Cincinnati, earned 
third place for their poster "Enabling Exploration." Ellen Ladwig, a 
fine arts major from University of Missouri, took fourth place for an 
oil painting she calls "Perseid Meteor Shower on a Newly Terra-Formed 
Moon." 

High school students Asa Shultz from Virginia and William Zhang from 
California tied for first place in the high school group. Shultz is a 
home-schooled senior enrolled in Covenant Academy who lives in 
Forest, Va. Zhang is a sophomore who attends Skoldberg Art Academy in 
San Diego. 

The contest was co-sponsored by Christopher Newport University in 
Newport News, Va. The university provided small cash awards for top 
prizes, and the NASA Center for Educational Technologies at Wheeling 
Jesuit University in Wheeling, W.Va., provided a Web site to support 
the contest. 

For information about other NASA education programs, visit:

http://artcontest.larc.nasa.gov

For more information about NASA and agency programs, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov

	
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