Raygun Gothic Rocketship
Denver, Colorado
In 2009, artists Sean Orlando, Nathaniel Taylor, and David Shulman oversaw the construction of a 40-foot-high shiny, silver Flash-Gordon-style "Raygun Gothic Rocketship" for Burning Man. 65 artists and craftspeople worked to build the ballistic sculpture. Desert-baked attendees could climb a gantry and walk inside the three decks; they could see aliens in tubes among other exhibits.
The rocket was sealed up, disassembled, and exhibited in the San Francisco Bay Area for a few years, making appearances at Maker Faire, NASA Ames for Yuri's Night, and landing along the Embarcadero near Pier 14. In 2017, the retro-futurist folly found a permanent home outside the Wings Over the Rockies Air and Space Museum in Denver.
Although its Burning Man origin was all about anti-commodification, today the rocket is perched on the roof of a stand selling ice cream.
At least it wasn't bulldozed for scrap or fired onto the sun.