Aldo Spadoni: Exploring the Boundaries of Art, Design, Aerospace Engineering & Popular Culture
Art and Illustration play an important role in the world of aerospace engineering design and development. Envisioning what advanced air and spacecraft concepts might look like facilitates the systems engineering process. The development of real aerospace vehicle system configurations is very much an interdisciplinary combination of engineering and art, requiring considerable creativity and ingenuity. Public perception of what constitutes a “real” spaceship is probably driven by the fanciful creations of Hollywood as much as reality. Why are spacecraft and other technology driven aerospace vehicles shaped the way they are, both in fiction and reality? How does Hollywood’s design and development process for the depiction of future technology differ from reality? Aldo Spadoni will show how he managed to blend art and engineering to great advantage throughout his technical career in aerospace engineering as well as his Hollywood consulting experience.
Aldo Spadoni is an aerospace engineer-futurist with over 40 years of experience supporting advanced NASA, DARPA, and US DoD programs. He created and managed an award-winning visualization team at Northrop Grumman. He is a team recipient of NASA’s Turning Goals Into Reality award and has several US patents to his credit. His consulting company, Aerospace Imagineering, specializes in the conceptual design and visualization of advanced aerospace technology concepts.
Aldo is an accomplished artist, illustrator and concept designer. He is President of the International Association of Astronomical Artists (IAAA). As a Hollywood technical consultant, he supported the production of Apollo 13, Stealth, Iron Man 1 & 2, and other movie projects. He helped produce and appears in the 2009 National Geographic Channel documentary called Hitler’s Stealth Fighter. He is currently the spacecraft technical advisor on the upcoming interstellar adventure film, Persephone, and the Space:1999 Eagle documentary. Aldo’s personal goals are to promote STEAM education and create compelling visions of humanity’s spacefaring future.