Arthur in Space
Welcome to ars astronautica – my personal space program.
This website documents my past and present astronautical art projects.
My involvement with space activities began over seventy-years ago when I had the fortunate experience to personally witness the beginnings of the U.S. space program while living in the immediate vicinity of Cape Canaveral and the Kennedy Space Center (1959 -1970). There I held summer jobs at the space center in 1967 & 1968 during the Apollo program.
As an AstroArtist, I am an early and active practitioner in the field of the astronautical arts by having initiated and realized a number of art-in-space projects beginning in 1985 with the Orbiting Unification Ring Satellite (O.U.R.S.) project and the Cosmic Dancer (1993) and Ars Ad Astra (1995) art interventions that were sent to the Mir space station. Information about these and other art interventions can be found throughout this website.
My work has been exhibited in a number of international space and art exhibitions including Space Commerce, Montreux (1986, 1988, 1990) Art Basel in (1987, 1988, 1989), the International Astronautical Congress (1995, 1997, 1998) All Design – Leben im schwerelosen Raum, Museum für Gestaltung, Zürich (2002), Abenteuer Raumfahrt. Aufbruch ins Weltall, Landes Baden-Württemberg im Landesmuseum für Technik und Arbeit in Mannheim (2006) Falling Without Fear, The Harwood Museum of Art, Taos, New Mexico (2012-13), Free Enterprise: The Art of Citizen Space Exploration, California Museum of Photography, UCR-University of California Riverside (2013), The Universe and Art, ArtScience Museum, Singapore (2017), Personal Structures – Open Borders exhibition curated by the Global Art Affairs Foundation in the context of the 2017 Venice Art Biennale. Cosmic Dancer was included in Fly me to the Moon exhibition at Kunsthaus Zürich (2019). My work ‘Greater Earth’ was selected for the Moon Bound Book to be launched to the Moon in 2026.
RECENT POSTS
Ars Astronautica Latest News and Articles
Space Option Star
Humanity is facing an imminent Energy Dilemma in that the limited proven reserves of fossil fuels could reach exhaustion levels at mid-century and none of the current alternative terrestrial energy options – nuclear – wind [...]
Enabling Peace off, with, and on Earth
The biggest obstacles to space development and to civilisation in general, are the wars over energy and other resources we are currently witnessing. The current period of shared prosperity, built upon and supported by a [...]
The Space Option
The Space Option is about humanity making the right choice at the right time. Space visionaries and pioneers long ago quietly and consequently developed both the scientific rationale and the technological concepts to open the [...]
Greater Earth
A New And Transformational Perception of Our Planet Since the beginning of human history the perception of its home planet Earth has always influenced the way humanity has formulated its beliefs and conducted its [...]
Space Option Star in ELEO
Developing solar power satellites (SPS) as a major energy source for Earth will involve multiple orbital demonstrators. Satellites in low Earth orbits (LEO) will have far lower costs than demonstrators in geostationary [...]
EarthSeeds
EarthSeeds – Humanity’s Ultimate Purpose in the Evolution of Life The EarthSeeds art intervention by Arthur Woods is an open source, open space, open community astronautical art intervention. The EarthSeeds art intervention is designed to send the “Seeds [...]
Ars Ad Astra – The 1st Art Exhibition in Earth Orbit
The Orbiting Unification Ring Satellite and the OUR-Space Peace Sculpture projects were the beginnings of my “private space program” which began to unfold and develop in other and sometimes in parallel directions. Below is the [...]
The Cosmic Dancer Sculpture on the Mir Space Station
On May 22, 1993, my sculpture called the Cosmic Dancer was launched to the Russian Mir space station on a Progress rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The Cosmic Dancer – a painted geometric form made [...]
The OUR-Space Peace Sculpture Project
Introducing a Cultural Dimension into the Space Environment Arthur R. Woods – Artist, Founder and President of the OURS Project. Member: I.A.A.A., I.S.A.S.T. Marco C. Bernasconi – OURS Vice President – Technical, Member: FBIS, A.I.A.A. [...]
