Safe landing and preparing for lift-off
Sean Orlando in the belly of the beast
Sean Orlando and the Raygun Gothic Rocketship had a safe landing in the desert early Monday morning. Two semis and an accompanying truck hauled the gleaming piece up from the Bay Area, and it was assembled in the beautiful light of the late afternoon.
It’s a massive thing, weighing close to 5,000 pounds, and there isn’t a more unlikely object to be found on the playa. The rocket is covered with a gleaming silver metal skin, which was stretched on an English wheel and pressed into place by hand.
Sean of course is the man behind last year’s Steampunk Treehouse, which, incredibly, is NOT on display publicly right now. Sean says there’s an organization in Delaware that is negotiating rights to exhibit the piece, and he’s hopeful that the Rocket Ship will wind up on the Embarcadero in San Francisco after the burn.
It was amazing to watch the pieces come together for the first time yesterday. The ship had never been assembled before, and of course there was a fair amount of last-minute improvisation going on to get it upright on the playa. The crew watched arm in arm as a crane slowly raised the pieces into position.
There are three chambers to the rocket. One includes the living quarters, navigation and communications equipment. Another will feature an alien specimen lab and various alien life forms, including a sculpture from Barbara that honors the memory of longtime Burner and artist Tom Kennedy. The piece references three of Kennedy’s art cars — Ripper the Shark, the Whale Car and the One-Eyed Wonder.
Dozens of artists collaborated on the design and interactive stuff on the inside of the rocket. There’s a denseness to it all; layer after layer of interest. “I hope it’s not too busy,” Sean said. Not to worry. There will be plenty to do after liftoff.
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August 25th, 2009 at 2:14 pm
Sean Orlando,
YOU ARE HOT!!!! WOWZERS… I hope that I run into you on the playa.. hehehe…
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August 25th, 2009 at 3:47 pm
Incredible!! :) Very exciting….only days now….
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August 25th, 2009 at 4:22 pm
very nice
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August 25th, 2009 at 7:03 pm
WOW!! I can’t wait to see it. This will be my sixth year and I keep coming earlier and earlier, but still don’t get around to see it all. Maybe I’ll have to volunteer as a helper so I can come even earlier next year.
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August 25th, 2009 at 7:19 pm
Congratulations, all! It’s been absolutely amazing working on this project. See you in dirt soon.
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August 25th, 2009 at 8:44 pm
Wish I was on the Playa already!
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August 25th, 2009 at 8:45 pm
Wish I was alredy there!
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August 25th, 2009 at 11:14 pm
That is so awesome. Good job guys!
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August 25th, 2009 at 11:42 pm
I’m loving every blog post because after three years attending, I can’t make it this year because I’m taking a road trip to move from Boston to Seattle. My son is on DPW bike crew so I’m waiting for a photo of that crew. See you next year, come hell or highwater – I’ll be there again until I am unable! Keep up the great blog.
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August 27th, 2009 at 10:41 am
[...] this week John Curley shot some wonderful photos of The Raygun Gothic Rocketship as it was being installed on the [...]
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August 27th, 2009 at 12:38 pm
hello everyone: can’t wait to see barbara’s sculpture honoring tom kennedy. Just want to tell everyone that several of us will be driving tom’s last art car project ” hadeen”. Look for this way cute fishmobile on the playa and come say hi to us as we all honor tom kennedy and all he did to make this world a better place..
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August 28th, 2009 at 11:29 am
Thilling, but know one should be surprised they did it. I think a rocket on the Embarcadero is exactly what San Francisco needs. Your photos are wonderful John.
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September 2nd, 2009 at 8:36 pm
Absolutely awesome! This has a strong resemblence to the spaceship used by Flash Gordon. Is that intentional?
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September 7th, 2009 at 12:03 pm
Fantastic piece, very cool! But if you’re going to make thousands of burners wait around for hours, it better lift off, or a real alien comes out, or you light 700,000 gallons of gas instantaneously.
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December 18th, 2009 at 1:33 am
[...] Read article here: http://blog.burningman.com/?p=5037 [...]
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