Artist Chesley Bonestell’s “The Exploration of Mars” featured on cover prototype of book in honor of Arthur C. Clarke

“The Exploration of Mars” (1956), a famous painting by pioneering and influential space artist Chesley Bonestell, is featured as wrap-around cover art on the prototype of Sentinels In Honor of Arthur C. Clarke, a forthcoming book of fiction and nonfiction edited by Gregory Benford and George Zebrowski.

Depicting a Werhner von Braun design for a Mars spacecraft, the Bonestell painting originally appeared in Willy Ley and Von Braun's science book The Exploration of Mars (1956). According to one online source, the original Bonestell painting hangs in the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, Washington DC.

Featuring pieces by Isaac Asimov, Stephen Baxter, Gregory Benford, Sheila Finch, James Gunn, Robert A. Heinlein, Frederik Pohl, Pamela Sargent, Joan Slonczewski and Allen Steele, Sentinels In Honor of Arthur C. Clarke is being published by Hadley Rille Books and is scheduled to be released in March 2010.

Pictured: The Exploration of Mars (1956), a science book written by Willy Ley and Wernher von Braun.