Robert Mccall (1919-2010), came to public attention in the early 1960s as the illustrator for LIFE magazine's memorable series on the future of space travel. At that time, he became one of a few select artists to be chosen for NASA, documenting the progress of American space history, and has been present at nearly every NASA event since.McCall's heroic artwork is on permanent exhibit at many prestigious institutions including the National Gallery of Art, and he has done murals for the National Air & Space Museum, the Pentagon, EPCOT, and Johnson Space Center.His work for movies includes the landmark 2001:A Space Odyssey, The Black Hole, Tora! Tora! Tora!, and Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Bob's work has been featured in virtually every popular magazine in the past thirty years.=========================================================At first glance you might think he's the local football coach: a burly, enthusiastic bear of a man who peppers his speech with "gee" and "golly" and exudes all the restless animated spirit of a grown Huck Finn. Yet if you watch him closely, if you study that expressive face, you see that there is a far look in his blue eyes, a gaze that sees into the future. At the easel, his expressiveness moves to the tips of his fingers. He falls silent. He stands before the easel or perches on a high stool for hours on end, as he paints.On the canvas a new glimpse of tomorrow begins to take shape. All the enthusiasm and knowledge pent up in him takes the form of a picture of futuristic beauty where human beings are building a good new world for themselves.If you are one of the he tens of millions who have visited the National Air and Space Museum in Washington , D.C. , you have seen the work of Robert T. McCall. His vast mural depicting man's conquest of the Moon covers an entire wall on the Museum's main floor, not far from the main entrance, where the Wright Brothers' original flying machine is displayed alongside Lindbergh's Spirit of St. Louis, the Apollo 11 command module and a sliver of rock from the Moon.If you saw the now-classic motion picture 2001: A Space Odyssey, chances are you were attracted to it by posters featuring the paintings of Robert T. McCall. His vision of the wheel-shaped space station and of space-suited astronauts on the Moon have adorned movie theaters and art museums around the world.If you have ever bought U.S. postage stamps that feature a scene from the American space program, you have probably licked the back of a Robert T. McCall picture. He has chronicled the history of Apollo, the Apollo-Soyuz joint US-USSR mission of 1975, and the more recent Space Shuttle missions for the Postal Service. Some of his stamps have been to the Moon and back.Like so many other men and women who find themselves not only fascinated by space exploration, but actively devoting their careers to it, Robert McCall first became interested in space flight and astronautics through reading science fiction.He was born in Columbus , Ohio , in 1919, a Middle American from the heart of the nation. He graduated from high school and won a scholarship to the Columbus Fine Art School. Like many an American, he started working even before his schooling was finished. At the age of seventeen he took a job with a local sign shop, which made posters for streetcars and outdoor advertising billboards.And he read science fiction magazines: Astounding Stories of Super Science, Amazing Stories, Startling, and Thrilling Wonder. The masthead Amazing proclaimed that the tales printed on its pulp pages were "Extravagant fiction today; cold fact tomorrow." As true a prophecy as was ever made. The young Bob McCall also read Popular Science and National Geographic and other magazines about technology and exploration. Some magazines were bought at secondhand shops; others came from his grandfather's collection."My grandfather was a typical country doctor," McCall states fondly, "with some special distinction because he was a contributing editor for some years for the American Medical Journal. That's a very unique distinction for an Ohio country doctor. He wrote many articles, and my father had stacks of the old journals. I can remember reading through those and going through the old medical books when I was eight, nine, ten years old."McCall's father was a schoolteacher for most of his life "We grew up in very modest circumstances," McCall says.McCall knew he wanted to be an artist as early as the age of eight. Yet he had an intense interest in science and technology, as well. For a while the family cherished hopes that he would become a physician, like his grandfather. But by the time Bob was a teenager it was clear that his special talent was in drawing. "I would draw things that interested me. I loved to draw military subjects-conflict and battle. Knights and their armor had a special fascination for me then. Their goals were sort of similar to those ...