"All I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by."   

- JOHN MASEFIELD "Sea Fever" 1902

ARTWORK GALLERY                                                         

Featuring dedicated fan art and other media relating to the ANSA space program as presented in the Planet of the Apes movies.  Submissions greatly appreciated and all credit is given where credit is due.  Images remain the property of their original creators and are only displayed here as a non-profit courtesy to other fans of this spacecraft.  No art displayed here may be reproduced or used without express permission from the artists themselves.

ARROW IV-based "ICARUS"- My original concept of the "whole" "Icarus" vehicle, including a surface to orbit lifting body and a nuclear powered mission specific payload section which includes the Hasslein based gravity drive system and a secondary nuclear fusion plasma drive.  This is the design that started this site, including extensive history of the mission and the project as well as schematics, images, list of contractors, and more!

CHRISTNER'S DISCOVERY AND EXPLORATION - Jeffery Christner and his son explore the actual filming site of the crashed ANSA spacecraft as seen in "Beneath the Planet of the Apes" and find some artifacts!

BILL RITCHIE'S PICTURES OF THE ORIGINAL PROP IN ITS LAST DAYS - a sad fate for such an iconic movie prop.

STEVE BURG'S "BLOW THE HATCH!" - Steve Burg is a talented artist I found on DeviantArt that had a really interesting bit of artwork that he'd done for the POTA / ANSA spacecraft of a not often done scene / subject ... the moment that Dodge blows the hatch on the spacecraft.

SCI-FI AIR SHOW'S "LIBERTY-2" ICARUS TAIL LANDER - The Sci-Fi Air Show (SFAS) has added their take on what the "tail-lander" version of the Icarus looks like, aka the version that we see crashed and burned in the second movie.

PLANET OF THE APES COLORING AND ACTIVITY BOOKS - Submitted by KIM HUCKABY - I had a few of these when I was a very young child.  What a blast from the past!  Here are some images of the astronauts and spacecraft from the old children's books.  Thanks, Kim!

LORD VAHMP'S ICARUS -  Lord Vahmp has submitted his vision of the Icarus in several views including a diorama scene he is working on.

GORDON CAREW'S FULL ICARUS WITH FTL BOOSTER STAGE - Gordon submitted this single tantalizing image of his personal vision of what the concept of a full Icarus vessel would appear as.  His design is sharp and fragile looking with just the hint of classic anime and is all at once an object of both beauty and grace.

ERIC MAURETTO'S FULL ICARUS ON MARS IMAGES - Eric has submitted several shots of what he believes the full Icarus vessel looks like set in majestic flight against the background of the planet Mars.

PLANET OF THE APES LUNCHBOX ARTWORK - featuring several shots of Virdon and Burke as well as a nice shot of the Icarus.

VIN SCIMONE'S "ICARUS" COMMAND MODULE - Vin has created a 3D representation of the "ICARUS" using a software rendering tool.  You won't believe your eyes because when I first saw this rendering, I thought that Vin had scratch-built a physical model!

ROBERT VANDERPOOL'S ASSORTED POTA IMAGES - Robert was kind enough to give me permission to share on my site a few of the many, many images that he has on his site.  I chose to borrow the images of the astronauts, some of which I've never seen before.

Hunter Goatley's Presidential Commission Briefing Dossier.  -LINK AWAY - "After 34 years, the Presidential Commission Briefing Dossier on the 1973 visit from Cornelius and Zira has been declassified!"  Hunter and his merry band of compatriots (which includes Dave Ballard) have done a nice job of creating this PDF file.  Download it from his own POTA site.  Thanks, Hunter!

THE RETURN ...  Mark Longmire had an idea that he sent to me via Email a while back.  What if Taylor, Landon and Dodge really did return to Earth?  Or, failing that, what if Brent was successful in his rescue mission, if he had a second ship and he could bring back three people total?  Interesting concept indeed.  Here are some images of what might have been ...

PLANET OF THE APES- GAMEBOY FINAL ENDING SCREEN SHOTS-  These are taken from the GAMEBOY edition of the POTA game and include a very nice picture of the Icarus vehicle.

DAVE BARKOVITZ'S ICARUS- Dave contacted me and asked if he could include some fan art on the site.  I was only too happy to oblige him and his work is very well done.  Find yet another version of the "Icarus" here along with official documents and even the test vehicle it was based upon.

MILO- RIDER FROM THE WORLD'S END-  Dave Ballard and Mike McColm have given me exclusive permission to display the "Riders of the Storm" comic, otherwise often called the "Milo story."  "Riders of the Storm" is the story of Milo finding a functional ANSA spaceship, learning how to fly it, convincing Cornelius and Zira to accompany him and then leaving the planet Earth in the future to return to the present.  Enjoy!

MATEEN GREENWAY'S ICARUS RENDERINGS-  Dave Ballard introduced me to Mateen's fantastic artwork and a short email conversation later, Mateen agreed to allow his artwork to be displayed here.  Thank you Dave and Mateen.

ICARUS COLORING BOOK PRINT- CIRCA 1974-  Dave Ballard has submitted a page from a mid '70's POTA coloring book showing another view of the Icarus.  Interesting.

"BEWARE THE BEAST!- Part 7"-Dave Ballard has asked me to be part of an online POTA comic hosting project.  The comic strip is "Beware the Beast" which is taken from a line from the Ape Scrolls which says "Beware the beast man."  The story (by Dave Ballard) and artwork (by Neil Foster) are top notch.  Dave thought that I might want to host Part 7 of this story, and after reading the three pages of Part 7, and seeing the final graphic frame, I now know why. Enjoy!

His Name was "John"...-  Zachary Scott contributed this scan of a Marvel Comics adaptation of the classic POTA story.  In this instance, we see that Landon may have had the first name of "John."

Shane Johnson's ANSA "Tail-lander" spacecraft conceptual artwork-  Shane has submitted this drawing of what he believes this particular model of the ANSA spacecraft (from the second movie) looked like before it crashed.

Alain LaFortune's Sinking and Sunken Icarus images-  Alain displays his talent in these computer drawn images of the classic scene from the original movie, along with an interpretive view of what the Icarus might look like after it sunk.

CRACKED Magazine Icarus Artwork-  These are scans from a 1975 issue of the comedy periodical "Cracked".  It had a parody of the POTA TV Series and Mark Longmire was kind enough to send in this artwork.

Chip D. Williams Japanese POTA artwork-  More images from the Pacific Rim release of the POTA movies, including a never before seen photo of the three ape-o-nauts in the cockpit!

Jan Rukr's VTOL capable "Icarus"-  Jan presents another conceptual design of the classic spacecraft, this time with VTOL capable rotating thrusters and landing gear.

Jan Rukr's "DAMOCLES" Tail Lander- Jan gives us his impression of the ANSA spacecraft as seen in the second film, "Beneath the Planet of the Apes".

Jan Rukr's "ANSA Skylab"- Jan Rukr once again does a little speculative design here and shows us what an ANSA "Skylab" project might have looked like with the Icarus command module as an integral part of the overall design.

Dave Ballard's Japanese POTA Movie Posters- Dave found these images and sent me the images, they were the best that he could do as the examples were tiny to begin with.  If anyone has copies of these posters or better, larger scans, please submit them.

Jan Rukr's "Icarus"- You will come to learn that Jan is a very talented artist.  He first introduced himself on the Icarus forum and showed us his creativity and capability with two versions of a paper model of the Icarus, offering them free of charge to visitors to his site and fulfilling the wish for one of the most requested paper model forms in all of science fiction.   Now Jan fires up his AUTOCAD program and shows us his vision of what the full Icarus vehicle looks like, two stages, with air brakes and landing gear.  Jan takes you from deep space through the atmosphere, all the way to splashdown and into the all too familar post splashdown scenes as well as shows you how the Icarus was supposed to return to Earth in 1982 after a successful mission.

Jim Key's Artwork- This artwork and Jim's designs are taken from the long defunct hobby magazine, "SCI-FI & FANTASY MODELS INTERNATIONAL".   I was lucky to grab a back issue of this magazine (Issue #38) from the company before they went belly up.  I have included these images here so that others may share in Jim's excellent talent and his visions of how the "Icarus" was built.

Planet of the Apes TV Series black and white comic book art!- This rare short story was submitted by Dave Ballard.  The story is done in black and white comic strip format and features Alan Virdon, Peter Burke, and Galen as they witness another ANSA spacecraft make reentry.  They rush to the scene of the crash only to find that the astronaut is none other than Peter Burke's old love, Verina.  Her two crewmembers die on reentry (surprise, surprise) and Burke, Virdon, and Galen help her return to the Hasslein Curve, hopefully to bring back help and let ANSA know where they are.  The story gives some insights, such as Virdon's mission is officially considered 'lost', and that ANSA has some ships capable of landing like an airplane and taking back off again (single stage surface to orbit).  Interesting.   May take a little while to load, but the images are scaled down from the submitted TIF files, and this was about as small as I could get them without losing detail.

The Hasslein Curve-  Officially mentioned in the second movie by astronaut John Brent, and then referred to as a "defect, a slippage in time", the Hasslein Curve is beautifully rendered here by Jason Soares.  Alpha Centauri is seen in the distance, as the astronauts are on approach and encounter the strange and fascinating anomaly created when the gravity tidal pools of multiple stars work to rend and warp both space and time.

Image used with permission by the artist.
Jason Soares' site can be found here.

The ANSA Prometheus- Here are several preliminary sketches which I did before I ever started this site.  When I first got the desire to research the POTA spaceship, I had very little to go on other than memory.  When I did find information on the ship, and found several models, the models were all very expensive or very hard to find so I decided to come up with a 'genre' specific spacecraft design, call it an 'improved' Icarus, or at least a more logical one.

The plan I had was to complete a full scratch-build of a 'genre' type ANSA spacecraft.  I chose the name "Prometheus", similar to "Icarus", from Greek mythology, a main stay of the United States space program (Gemini, Apollo, Atlas, Trident, Mercury, etc.).   Prometheus was the god who gave the gift of fire to man.  What a more fitting name for the first interstellar voyager than a figure of mythology who flew too near the sun, crashed, and died.  The actual model, when completed, should be from one to two feet long, I'm hoping either for 1/72nd or 1/48th scale.  I chose this scale in order for the vessels to be displayed with standard scale miniature figures such as those available from Airfix ("astronauts") or any of the lines of flight crews.  These sketches were done freehand in MS Paint using just a careful eye and a steady hand.

Zach Stevens sent me the following items, namely a complete surface to orbit launch of the ship that returns in EFTPOTA.   Interesting!  Also, Zach included sources that show other views of Skipper's ship, which, strangely, is now called a "small reconnaissance vessel".  More proof that ANSA is the military branch of the space program?

Surface to Orbit Launch- for the first time in print, we see the lift off of the Ape-O-Naut's ship and the destruction of the planet.  You'll notice that this is obviously a two stage rocket, that when it lifts off from the ground, it leaves a stage behind.

Skipper's ANSA spacecraft- showing a view similar to the one seen in Marvel's first issue.  This time, the spacecraft is referred to as a 'small reconnaissance vessel'.

Another view of Skipper's ANSA spacecraft- A more traditional view and representation of the events.

"Icarus" by Tommy I. Wade

If you know your sci-fi, you will see that this model is actually the merging
of the "Icarus" with the "Narcissus" shuttle from the movie "ALIEN"

a
"A.N.S.A. SPACECRAFT ICARUS"
original artwork by Mark Longmire.

Image used with permission of the artist.

Please check out The Wonderful World of Longmire
for a great Planet of the Apes parody!

PHIL BROAD'S IMPRESSION OF THE "COMPLETE " ICARUS

 





SPECULATIVE ANSA SPACECRAFT -"SPARROW III-C" CONCEPT BY PHIL BROAD
IMAGES USED WITH PERMISSION OF THE ARTIST

You can find more of Phil's impressive work as well as his own views and
interpretations of this incredible spacecraft at this site.

"ICARUS" by Mark Weston.   3D computer art.  Used with permission of the artist.
Please check out Mark's site for more excellent sci-fi related artwork.

 

"LANDING ZONE" from Dave Ballard.
Image used with permission of the artist

Dave also owns a very original scratch-built Icarus.  Check it out here!

POWER RECORDS PLANET OF THE APES RECORD AND STORYBOOK SETS-  These were a set of four storybooks accompanied by a 45 rpm record.  As you read the book, you listened to the record and the voices on the record recreated the action in the book.  For its time it was a novel children's media.  Each record was produced circa 1974 and were available at places like K-Mart, TG&Y, etc.  Any store that sold toys probably had a children's section with these and other similar 'storybook' records in it.  Retail was $1.49 each.  Power Records produced storybooks for POTA, BTPOTA, EFTPOTA, and BFTPOTA.  I have included scenes from the first three as they contain subject matter that deals with the "Icarus".  The Icarus was not mentioned in the last storybook at all.  There was no storybook produced for the fourth POTA movie; Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, the reason why is not known.

Power Records PLANET OF THE APES Storybook.

Power Records BENEATH THE PLANET OF THE APES Storybook.

Power Records ESCAPE FROM THE PLANET OF THE APES Storybook

Notice in the Power Record's storybooks that the "Icarus" is just a space capsule (a more traditional design at that) and that several key elements are simplified.  Stewart is not even a member of the crew in the POTA story book ("Three astronauts in suspended animation..."), and "Milo" is not present in the third book.  Strange...  Just another artistic impression of the ANSA spacecraft in popular media by Arvid Knudsen and Associates, circa 1974.

Marvel Comics adaptation of PLANET OF THE APES- This is a more traditional comic book available for ... $0.25!, circa 1975.   The humorous fact of this adaptation is that it appeared 7 years after the original movie debuted.  Kind of like if Marvel had done the adaptation to Star Wars (1977) in 1984 or a full year after Jedi appeared in theaters...  Yeah, timely aren't they, and a bit late as by 1975, the POTA craze was dying down.  There were no more movies, and only a short lived cartoon series and an equally short lived TV series to carry the legacy into the tail end of the '70's.  In 1977, Star Wars would arrive on the scene and suddenly the only hairy talking apes that anyone was interested in would be Wookies...  I think George Lucas makes a cameo appearance in this adaptation.  See if you can spot him!

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