Thanks JJJ that's just FAB!
Back in 1995 when Greg Bock and I used to Astro busk in the Surfers Paradise Mall we came across a guy like this and to this day I still have one of his paintings.
If you ever watch the original War of The Worlds from 1958 (or several other SciFi movies from that era) at the beginning is the pioneering Astro/Space art work of Chesney Bonestel. Sure its dated, fanciful by what we know today but it was pioneering and had a lasting effect in popularising space travel/exploration. Thats what I think Astro/Space artists do, even today with all the great astro images we are bombarded with, they still stir the imagination.
Actually no matter how different their paintings maybe the Voyager spacecraft have shown us that many Moons in are solar system were even more bizarre than any artist could have painted.
http://www.bonestell.org/
http://www.war-ofthe-worlds.co.uk/gall_f20.htm
PeterM.