Excellent as usual!

fantastic image!!!

Very well done! Nice modelling and lighting. At first I didn't catch sight of second spaceship in the distance ;-)

very professional work.

It's a beautiful work, Tom. Your Mars is great. I really dig the blue atmospheric limb. And the purplish ambient light on the ship makes for a striking appearance to the craft and its details. And of course your model is just great. I always loved this design, since I saw McCall's rendering of it.

Great looking ship and scene! err... ships. Didn't see the second one until I read the other comments. Would the limb really be blue? I'm not sure. I guess if the sunrises/sets look blue, then the atmosphere at dawn should look that way too.

Very dramatic image, fine model.

Excellent!

Great render!

Excellent image and model!

Extremely cool render Tom. Surely some space or science magazine would want this.

Nice work. Modelling is excellent.

Oh that is just Sweet!! Love the angle the blue glow of atmosphere from the planet all Awesome very cool stuff!!

Thanks for the kind comments, everyone! And geirla, I've been of two very different minds on the limb atmospheric color, but there are a couple of low sun angle shots from orbit that do show a blue outer layer, so I decided to give it a try. It certainly is dramatic, if not realistic...

Very nicely done, particularly the lighting and composition. 5

Yop class

Excellent modeling as always Tom. I like the blue limb of the atmosphere myself and it does add a striking sense or color to the image. The other ship in the background I almost missed myself, should that be a little more illuminated then what is depicted in this scene? Cheers, David

Yes!! Love it. We need to keep the dreams alive, in spite of getting the rug pulled out from under manned space flight by this administration. This is a grand scene that deserves a larger render.

Er, actually, the decision to end the shuttle program, and the timeline for doing so, came from the Columbia accident investigation panel. They said after 2010, it could no longer operate within safe parameters. As for Constellation, none of the components were anywhere near the original schedule, and it had been consistently underfunded, so it wasn't going to produce a useable manned system in the foreseeable future. So the current administration is trying to keep the dream alive, as best they can, with VERY strained budgets. If you want to blame somebody, blame those in charge 10 years ago for not planning for a suitable shuttle replacement.

That's some top notch modeling, super realism and detailing. I totally agree with you about the current program, too. I'm really glad to see SpaceX making some very bold moves, as much as I'm sad to see the Constellation program ending because they had some really great ideas, many people have long recognized the need to bring the private sector into space development in order for things to really move. The private sector was unwilling to take the risk alone, so they were waiting for an administration willing to meet them halfway so they could go forward with support and not be hanging in too dangerous of a place. Have you seen their latest design for what will be the strongest rocket since the Apollo program? Way cool stuff is happening at last!

Lovely detail on the ship!