Go Unity !

This issue devoted an excellent dossier to space tourism, a fascinating theme but not necessarily an easy one to illustrate: between rendering a rocket as it takes off (which doesn't really illustrate the theme of tourism), or getting into the art of NASA posters on space tourism (superb, but the idea is already taken), I had to find a fairly “graphic” way out of the problem, while remaining technically accessible of course.
In the end, a very dynamic and colorful proposal won out, much to my delight: Virgin Galactic's VSS Unity! A pioneer in carrying space tourists from 2018 to the edge of space (80-90 km altitude), Virgin Galactic has been working on reusable spaceplanes since the 2000s. In 2021, the prototype will make its maiden flight: carried by a specially-developed wide-body aircraft (the VMS 'Eve') to an altitude of nearly 14,000 m, the aircraft is released before its rocket engine is ignited and the nose is pointed into the deep black sky. Same principle as the X-15 and its B-52 carrier bomber in the 1960s.
Now decommissioned in favor of a new class of aircraft still under development at Virgin, the VSS Unity is nonetheless a beautiful bird that I was keen to draw, rocket engine on, in full ascent through the last (thin) layers of the atmosphere. I like the space of very high altitude: beyond the infinite shades of blue, which are very pleasant to work with, I'm very sensitive to the passage from one world to another, and this idea of an intermediate space, already completely hostile to man, which would have to be conquered to reach "real" space.