Willis E Terry, ‘Sky Lift’ (1953)

 

In Robert Heinlein's ‘Sky Lift’ a plague breaks out amongst the human colonists on Pluto. There is a cure, but it is on Earth, a long way from where it is needed. Two ‘Torch Pilots’, rocketeers who are prepared to fly extended missions at extreme accelerations, despite the dangers to their health of such exertion—the story makes it clear that this unprecedented flight, all the way to the outer edge of the solar system under immense g-forces could easily kill them—are summoned to Earth Satellite Station, to fly the medicine in time to save everyone on Pluto. The cover art from the November 1953 issue of Imagination, where the story was first published, is by American artist Willis E Terry (1921-2009) and shows the opening moments of the tale. The rocket bringing the two pilots up to the Satellite Station is a slender crimson craft, trailing its fiery rocket exhaust in two curving trails that lead the eye back down to Earth itself. It is a decent but rather run-of-the-mill piece of space art, somewhat bland and unmemorable, defined by three curves: the horizon of the Earth, the hull of the space station and the whip-like tendrils of the rocket exhaust. Despite its blasting exhaust the rocket itself does not give the impression of movement: in fact it looks almost tethered to the Earth by those trails from its engines, trapped and stuck. 

Terry also provided an interior black-and-white illustration for the story, of Joseph Appleton (one of the two Torch Pilots) actually flying the ship to Pluto, his face stretched and distorted by the extreme g-forces: a grimacing, bizarre, almost mummified-looking visage, and a much more memorable piece of art:  

The story was reprinted in the August 1958 edition of Rogue for Men, with D. Bruce Derry interior illustration: