Margaret Weitekamp, curator in the museum's space history division, was able to show me the proposal for the mural that McCall submitted to the museum in 1975. He had such wide range as an artist-making everything from patches worn by astronauts and 21 space-related postage stamps, to the six-story mural at the Air and Space museum, which he painted over the course of eight months in 1976. McCall attended every major shuttle space launch for decades and was praised for his futuristic views of space, and how they pushed space exploration forward. In his 60-year career, the prolific artist produced more than 400 paintings. (I bet he was pleased when sci-fi author Isaac Asimov once described him as the "nearest thing to an artist in residence from outer space.") And one of his most visible projects might have been the advertising posters he created for director Stanley Kubrick's 1968 cult classic "2001: A Space Odyssey." His interest in space came from an early interest in science fiction. McCall's career really kicked off in the 1960s, when he illustrated for the Saturday Evening Pos t, Life and Popular Science. Last Friday, the 90-year-old artist suffered a fatal heart attack in Scottsdale, Arizona. But the sad news of McCall's death is spreading throughout the air and space community. "The Space Mural - A Cosmic View," as the painting's called, has become an important piece in the museum, and its maker Robert McCall, one of the world's best space artists. Visit the Apollo to the Moon gallery and you'll see the original space suits worn by Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the Moon. Peer around the corner and you'll see an actual Apollo lunar module. The sprawling mural is a preview to what awaits. And to his right, is a lunar rover and the Apollo lunar lander, its gold foil glimmering. To the astronaut's left, is the artist's swirling depiction of the Big Bang Theory on the creation of the universe. In its center, a fully suited Apollo astronaut gazes out at museum-goers, lunar dust suspended in the air around his boots. Just inside the entrance to the National Air and Space Museum is a multi-story mural.