starfoozle: Guys. Let me tell you why Alan Bean...

Guys. Let me tell you why Alan Bean is the coolest.

Bean was the Lunar Module Pilot of the Apollo 12 mission, and the fourth human being to set foot on the moon. He is also the first artist to have ever spent time on the surface of another world, and his resulting creations back on Earth are pretty remarkable.

That texture you’re seeing underneath the paint comes from impressions of the same type of moon boots, hammers, and soil-sampling tubes used on the Apollo missions. There are also particles of the gold foil insulation and heat shield from the Apollo 12 Command Module, and small samples of moon dust taken from the flags and patches on Bean’s space suit, mixed directly into the paint.

Check out Alan Bean’s website if you’d like to learn more about these paintings and the person behind them. For now, all I can say is that the prospect of having bits of science and history literally embedded in some lovely art is just really damn awesome.

ALAN BEAN FEELS.