NASA Went Retro With Their New Space Travel Posters

Travel to the world of tomorrow—today!

NASA/JPL
NASA/JPL
NASA/JPL
NASA/JPL
NASA/JPL
NASA/JPL
A newly-released poster encourages visitors to explore Enceladus, Saturn's sixth-largest moon. NASA/JPL
NASA also commissioned Stefan Bucher of 344 Design to design this poster of Jupiter. NASA/JPL
NASA/JPL
NASA/JPL
NASA/JPL
NASA/JPL
A newly-released poster encourages future tours of Mars. NASA/JPL
A newly-released poster in NASA's Visions of the Future series heralds a future "grand tour" using gravity assists. NASA/JPL

What does the future look like? If these newly-released NASA posters have anything to do with it, the future will look backward even as technology hurtles forward. The agency has given the public a sneak peek into the world of tomorrow with the release of three new posters promoting the travel craze of the future—trips to Enceladus, Mars and even a “grand tour” to Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune using gravity assists.

The posters were designed by Invisible Creature, the stage name of the illustration and design duo Don and Ryan Clark. The pair is responsible for everything from Grammy posters to magazine illustrations, and jumped at the chance to create a series of space posters for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. In a blog, they write that they were commissioned to imagine the retro future of space travel by a visual strategist at JPL.

As Sean O’Kane reports for The Verge, NASA has long embraced gorgeous design. JPL actually has its own design studio that does graphic design for the agency and even helps scientists imagine future missions.

NASA is no stranger to travel posters—last year, they released a series of WPA-style posters highlighting potentially habitable planets. All of the agency’s posters can be viewed on JPL’s website.

Along with a previously commissioned poster, the three new additions will be part of the agency’s Visions of the Future calendar, which will only be available to NASA and JPL staff and associates. If you want them for yourself, you’ll have to settle with printing your own or purchasing them from Invisible Creature’s online store. Space tourism may be further away than you’d like, but there’s nothing keeping you from imagining the excitement and glamor of a beautifully retro future.

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