'Farscape 1' Mini-Shuttle Launched from the Cargo Bay of a NASA Space Shuttle

ARTIST: William Louis ("Bill") McDonald Senior.

COMPANY: Argonaut-GreyWolf.

YEAR: 1999

WEBSITE: www.alienufoart.com/alien-ufo-…

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PROJECT: None. This was just an obsessive from memory "sketch-a-doodle."

MEDIA: Bic black ballpoint pens, graphite #2 pencil, Pilot fine-tip pen on the back of an old gray manila envelope.

ART CATEGORY: Fan Art.

CRAZY STORY: On what must have been Friday, March 19, 1999, I was getting ready for bed because I had to work a sixteen-hour day for my detective agency boss, William Edward ("Sifu") Holland on Saturday the 20th. My wife was zapping through the cable channels and I grabbed her hand that was holding the remote as my eye caught an action sequence of this mini-shuttle launching from the open cargo bay of a NASA space shuttle in Earth orbit, only to be suddenly grabbed by a gravitational vortex and sucked into a wormhole. I watched the following sequence of it arriving in some other part of our galaxy and subsequently being grabbed by some giant battleship mothership that looked like it had been kit-bashed from an entire hobby store's Japanese model kit inventory.

My wife insisted we turn off the TV and that I get some sleep. I could barely fall asleep. I was OBSESSED! At 0430 California time, the automatic coffee maker woke me up and my obsessed psyche forced me to take a half hour to sketch from memory what I had seen, the night before. I used a graphite #2 pencil and a Bic ball point pen along with a Pilot fine-line pen during what was my pre-planned shit/shower/shave time. I didn't bother to shower or shave. I continued to draw while on the can.

I could not leave until I laid it out on the back of one of my boss' large manila envelopes. It was the first sheet of paper I could find. I finished the sketch from memory through-out the day while performing sub-rosa vehicle surveillance on a wayward housewife for her husband's attorney.

The following Friday night, I had a DVD recorder going and learned that the program was the Australian-American science fiction television series "Farscape." It premiered in the US on Sci-Fi Channel's SciFi Friday, March 19, 1999, at 8:00 pm EST as their anchor series. The series was conceived by Rockne S. O'Bannon and produced by The Jim Henson crew.

I learned after a complex series of telephone calls that the "Farscape 1" minishuttle was designed by the same guy who had designed the Flying Sub for Irwin Allen back in 1965: William Creber.

FROM THE WIKI: "American astronaut John Crichton finds himself thrown across the universe when an experimental mission goes bad. Crichton teams up with a group of rebels involved in an intergalactic battle and begins a journey unlike anything he dreamed was possible while trying to find a way back to Earth."

LOCATION: On the road, in my pickup, at the Santa Margarita Community in East Orange County, California.