Grandfather's stained glass to hang in Nasa office

A grandfather who makes coloured glass creations at home says he was "delighted" to receive a commission from a rocket engineer at US space agency Nasa.

Roland Berry from Cheltenham, who has been seen by millions on TikTok, has created a 96.5cm x 38cm (38in x 15in) coloured glass panel with Nasa's first space launch system (SLS) rocket, Artemis I, on it.

The piece will hang in the office of Jennifer Butler Vollmer, a rocket engineer at Nasa, at the agency's site in Alabama.

"It's a combination of very old and very new," Mr Berry said of the artwork.

He added: "[Ms Vollmer] just said she was an engineer in Alabama, working for Nasa, and I didn't really think much about it other than I was delighted to get a commission.

"But it turns out she's one of the top ladies at Nasa. I've been on the phone to her a few times and she seems a delightful lady."

While Mr Berry, and others, refer to his work as stained glass he said it is actually coloured glass - it would be stained glass if it was painted on or stained.

"It's an absolutely up-to-date image on an absolutely ancient, traditional way of working," he said of the piece.

Ms Vollmer said she had been searching for "space-themed stained glass" when she came across Mr Berry's videos on TikTok.

She works on the SLS program as a rocket engineer, and was launch support lead for the SLS Core Stage office, dealing with the orange part of the Artemis I rocket that can be seen on Mr Berry's painting, during its launch in November 2022.

"Something just told me to reach out," she said.

"This is better than space-themed, this is a piece of art that shows America's most powerful rocket ever built and one I work on every day, for most of the last ten years.

"I am so excited for it to arrive."

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