Environmental Tectonics Corporation’s NASTAR® Center Supports New York Art Charity Event to Send American Artist Laurance Rassin into Space
Southampton, PA, May 03, 2010 — Environmental Tectonics Corporation’s (OTC Bulletin Board: ETCC) (“ETC” or the “Company”) The National AeroSpace Training and Research (NASTAR®) Center announced today that it is partnering with Valerie Wilson Travel, Inc., and Virtuoso, premier travel agents for Virgin Galactic, and the Durst Organization to support artist Laurance Rassin in his goal of becoming the first American artist to create art in space. The art exhibit titled “Simply Blue” will feature a public reception for the artist at the Condé Nast Tower at 4 Times Square on May 6th, 2010 from 6-8 pm.
The collection for “Simply Blue” spans a decade of the artist’s signature color filled, large scale impasto oil paintings, bronze sculptures, ceramics, tapestries, and textiles and reflects his love of the modern era, space travel and romance. “Simply Blue” is open to the public and will be on exhibit through June 4th in the lobby of 4 Times Square. Proceeds will be shared between support for Laurance’s flight aboard Virgin Galactic and the on-going flights of the non-profit, Chabad’s Children of Chernobyl (CCOC) whose mission is to evacuate children from the Chernobyl region of Ukraine.
Mr. Rassin will start his space training at the NASTAR Center facility in Pennsylvania later this year. To date, the NASTAR Center has trained over 220 people for space flights. A video featuring Mr. Rassin’s upcoming spaceflight instruction and personal space story will be showcased during the art event.
In March 2010, Virgin Galactic completed its first “captive carry” test flight over the Mojave Desert with the spaceship, VSS Enterprise. Test flight programming will continue through 2011, progressing from captive carry to independent glide and then powered flight, prior to the start of commercial operations. Chabad’s Children of Chernobyl (CCOC) recently completed its 90th flight to safety and has rescued 2,690 children to date by permanently evacuating them from the devastated Chernobyl region.
Brienna Henwood, Director for Space and Research at the NASTAR Center, stated “Laurance’s passion and artistic expression of space demonstrates that space is now accessible to everyone — not just highly trained astronauts. I am impressed by the significant relationships created around this common goal and am encouraged that together we can help others in achieving the same dream of space.”
About Laurance Rassin
Laurance Rassin is a New York artist and artistic director of The New Blue Riders. Weaving an over-arching narrative with over 500 original works of art, Laurance interjects humor to his whimsical characters and interior scenes allowing his fictional almost cinematic stories to unfold. With Laurance’s work, now featured regularly at Bonhams & Butterfields, 20th Century in Manhattan, he has shown not only auction house appeal, but also terrific pop appeal. His women’s fashions continue to dazzle on the runways in Manhattan, Miami and London where a line of “wearable art” bearing his name, Laurance Rassin Signature, has been featured at Saks Fifth Avenue in select stores nationwide and continues to be a great source of inspiration. http://thenewblueriders.com/laurance/bio.html
About The NASTAR Center
The National AeroSpace Training And Research (NASTAR®) Center (www.nastarcenter.com) is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Environmental Tectonics Corporation. The NASTAR Center houses a variety of state-of-the-art equipment and professional staff to support the training and research needs of the aerospace community, including military aviation (fixed and rotary wing), civil aviation (fixed and rotary wing), space travel (government and private) and research support and data collection. The NASTAR® Center’s equipment and programs are highly modular and flexible and can accommodate a wide range of aerospace training and research requirements
