Rawlings, Pat

American Illustrator 1955-

Pat Rawlings^* is one of the finest and best-known technical illustrators in the world. His extraordinarily realistic depictions of future spacecraft have been reproduced in hundreds of books and magazines, as well as in movies and on television, since the 1970s. Like the earlier visions of Chesley Bonestell, Rawlings's work has imparted a sense of reality to space travel. This quality has been instrumental in "selling" the reality of space travel to laypersons who otherwise might think of space travel as science fiction or fantasy.

While working for Eagle Engineering, Rawling created an internal art studio—Eagle Visuals—with a team of illustrators and model makers responsible for the majority of the artwork depicting the advanced programs of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Since 1989 Rawlings has worked for Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), where he has produced artwork for nine NASA field centers and for NASA headquarters. He also has produced a series of calendars for SAIC, all of which feature his paintings. Much of the perception of the American public and that of people worldwide of the future of space exploration is due to Rawlings's visions.

see also Artwork (volume 1); Bonestell, Chesley (volume 4); Human Missions to Mars (volume 3); Lunar Bases (volume 4); Lunar Outpost (volume 4); Mars Bases (volume 4); Mars Missions (volume 4).

Ron Miller

Bibliography

Di Fate, Vincent. Infinite Worlds. New York: Penguin Group, 1997. Hardy, David. Visions of Space. London: Paper Tiger, 1990.

^*Examples of Rawlings' art can be found in the Volume 4 articles "Lunar Bases" (page 88) and "Lunar Outposts" (page 90).