David Spain wrote:
I think the kid's book artists saw the space artwork in magazine ads and
copied them, Scott thinks it may be the other way around.

YOU COPIED ME!
NO YOU COPIED ME!
STOP COPYING ME OR I'M GOING TO TELL MOM!

I went through that whole website, and the things that gets copied the
most are the von Braun Collier's/Disney Ferry Rockets; those things show
up again and again with only slight variations.
How this all got started was when Scott Lowther posted some Boeing
images of a conical shuttle rocket in orbit on his blog, and others near
a large spacecraft: http://up-ship.com/blog/?p=5320
http://up-ship.com/blog/?p=5335
....and David Winfrey posting a link to two similar paintings on the
space art website: http://dreamsofspace.nfshost.com/advss.htm
http://dreamsofspace.nfshost.com/sp4tr.htm
Which identified the spacecraft as Willy Ley's "Minerva" design.
I then went through the space art website and found more paintings of
the ferry ships: http://dreamsofspace.nfshost.com/spafl.htm
and although I thought it might be some sort of SSTO vehicle at first,
I then ran into what exactly it gets launched on, which is a real giant
of a booster...based on the WvB one of course:
http://dreamsofspace.nfshost.com/1957spacepilots.htm
It's hard to get any size estimates on this thing, but the larger ferry
rockets in the paintings look around 75-100 long, and that would make
the whole works around 400-500 feet high with a diameter at the base of
around 60-75 feet.

Pat