The ability to place oneself in an imagined environment is a simple operation for the brain to preform. Representing the fictive environment to another person can be more difficult. One might find it taxing to choose appropriate words describing the mental image of a lunar landscape or the surface of Mars, but a more arduous task is presenting the imaginary place as realistic and believable when there is no basis for comparison. In order for astronomical art to be believable, the images must possess a certain familiarity that takes them out of the fictive realm and brings them into our world. This was the task of the astronomical artist Chesley Bonestell in the 1940s. Although his artwork appeared at a time when space travel was primarily a topic of science fiction, Bonestell used scientific facts and photographic realism to create paintings that presented a believable and plausible vision of our Solar System.

People have often pondered the galaxy and our Solar System since the emergence of self-awareness in our species, yet it was not until the past several decades that this great mystery was explored by mankind. Man's landing on the moon and the excavation of Mars' surface was but a dream when Chesley Bonestell's carrer as an astronomical artist began in the 1940s and 50s. It was his mission to confer with respected astronomers, such as Wernher von Braun, and produce illustrations that were carefully researched in order to provide mankind with a mental image of our Solar System. It was von Braun who said that "Chesley Bonestell's pictures.... present the most accurate portrayal of those faraway heavenly bodies that modern science can offer" (Miller, Scientific 79). Bonestell's consultation with astronomers ensured that his paintings were indeed based on the best contemporary knowledge of outer space at that time (Clarke, Blueprint 219). It was his careful research of scientific facts that allowed Bonestell's paintings to bring about "an intense believability" to the rest of our Solar System in the mind of astronomers as well as the common man (Ordway, 59). In essence, it was not merely through artistic interpretation and expression that Bonestell's paintings contained plausible astronomical scenery, but rather through his use of current scientific knowledge.

Bonestell painted several scenes of Mars which exemplify his application of current scientific knowledge. For example, in his paintings of Mars, Bonestell included canals that were discovered and mapped by Giovanni Schiaparelli in the late 19th century (fig.1). Schiaparelli believed these canals were a sophisticated irrigation system developed by Martians to transport water around the planet. Although the existence of canals was a topic of debate in the late 1930s, it was confirmed by Dr. Edison Pettit's obervations in 1939 that the canals did exist (Ley, 113). In the 1949 book, The Conquest of Space, Willy Ley addressed the existence of Martian canals and claimed that "As of 1949: the canals of Mars do exist" (Ley, 114). Thus, canals can be seen in Bonstell's paintings such as Surface of Mars (fig.2), Mars seen from Deimos (fig. 3), and Martian Landscape (fig. 4). By painting canals on Mars, Bonestell applied the scientific knowledge available to him at the time to create a plausible vision of Mars.

As scientific knowlege increased and Earthlings gained the ability to make space travel an issue of science fact rather than science fiction, discoveries showed that some features in the paintings of Mars by Bonestell were not accurate. In 1971, just over twenty years after Bonestell's paintings were on the covers of magazines, such as Life and Colliers, a Mars probe, Mariner IX, proved that there were "definitely no canals" on Mars and that the dark, straight lines on the maps designed by Schaiparelli were "just illusions." (Asimov, 10). Photographs, such as those taken by Viking 1 in 1976 (fig. 5), confirm the observations of Mariner IX and prove that the canals of Mars do not exist. Nonetheless, Bonestell utilized the scientific knowledge available to him at the time of painting and his illustrations presented a then-plausible vision of Earth's neighboring planet.

Mars is not the only body in our Solar System to be touched by Bonestell's artistic skill. His paintings of the Moon are numerous and he approached them with the same careful research that he utilized in painting the red planet. For example, a 1949 text describes the surface of the moon as being covered in a fine rock dust and having mountain chains that look "very much like those we have on earth" (Ley, 57-61). Based on his consultation with astronomers, Bonestell believed the moon to have granite and lava on the surface and he thought that the surface would be "jagged because it would be continued to be shattered" by asteroids and meteors (Durrant, Thoughts). These features can be seen in Bonestell's paintings The Moon's Apennines and the crater Archimedes (fig. 6), Theophilus (fig. 7) and Copernicus (fig. 8). The scenery in each of these paintings brings a comfortable familiarity to the Moon because structures, such as the mountains, could easily exist on Earth. While familiarity makes the paintings more believable, what adds to their plausiblity is Bonestell's use of current scientific knowledge.

Just as scientific advances revealed that Bonestell's paintings of Mars contained errors, new scientific discoveries showed us that his portrayal of the Moon was flawed as well. Bonestell's images of the Moon were so plausible, that there was a "universal sigh of disappointment after the first lunar landing when the Moon was shown not to look like a Bonestell painting" (Miller, Space 16). The "romance" Bonestell created was destroyed when the Moon landings were shown on TV (Patton, 41). The "soft lunar hills seen by the Apollo astronauts bore little resemblance to the craggy, romanticized landscapes in his paintings" (Miller, Scientific 81). Photographs of the Moon show the craters Copernicus (fig. 9), Theophilus (fig. 10), Archimedes and the Apennines (fig. 11) as having softer edges rather than the jagged ones portrayed by Bonestell. Bonestell himself said that when he first saw the pictures coming back from the Moon that he "...thought how wrong I was! My mountains were all sharp, and they aren't on the Moon. They're all round, battered by millions of years of meteorites....I expected them to be broken and sharp" (David, 9-11). Nonetheless, Bonestell utilized the scientific knowledge available to him at the time of painting which made his illustrations of Earth's then unexplored satellite plausible and belivable.

In addition to the consideration and inclusion of scientific facts, Bonestell's paintings also have a photographic quality that adds to their believability. To viewers who are unacquainted with astronomical scenery, many of Bonstell's paintings, such as those of the Moon, could appear to be a photograph rather than a painting. In fact, astronomer Arthur C. Clarke said that "...his paintings have sometimes been mistaken for actual colour photographs..." (Miller, Scientific 79). In a side by side comparison of Theophilus, for example, it is easy to believe Bonestell's painting is the photograph because of the clear, sharp, picture- perfect image he produces. The actual photograph of Theophilus is quite dull and almost seems ficticious because of it's lack of interesting features. (fig. 12). Using Theophilus as an example, it is easy to see why people were disappointed to see that the Moon did not look like a Bonestell painting. Bonestell's vision of the Moon is realistic and his photographic technique adds to it's belivablity, thus constructing a plausible illustration of Earth's satellite before it was walked upon by man.

Bonestell also constructed a believable vision of Earth's neighboring planet, Mars, with his photographic style of painting. One aspect of Bonstell's style that makes his paintings "seem as if they were painted from life" is his ability to portray extraterrestrial "...landscapes as real and strange as anything on Earth" (Miller, Space 16). For example, Martian Landscape (fig. 4) looks very much like some unexplored part of the Earth where one can see a dust bowl, soft green grass, and rock mountains all at the same time. These features make Mars seem more familiar to the viewer. The familiarity coupled with Bonestell's photographic style creates a believable and plausible illustration of Mars.

Perhaps more than any other feature, the photographic quality of Bonestell's work made his paintings so convincing to the common man. This photographic realism coupled with his basis in scientific facts made his paintings believable in the eyes of astronomers as well. It is easy to understand how people in a time before space exploration could become so convinced of what a planet or satellite looked like on the basis of a Bonestell painting. His details were considered accurate at the time of painting and his scenes always breathtaking. In fact, his paintings were considered so accurate that they shaped the opinions of popular culture and the scientific community in the 1950s and 60s. Bonestell's artwork was assumed to be true until modern technology and new discoveries proved otherwise. It was the believable nature of his work that allowed him to construct a plausible vision of the Solar System as it exists beyond the Earth.