Day Of Activities Capitalizing On The Mission's Unique Call Sign For The Lunar Lander; 'Snoopy'

NASA's Johnson Space Center, in collaboration with Space Center Houston, its official visitor center, will celebrate the 50th anniversary of Apollo 10 mission on Thursday, April 25, with a day of activities capitalizing on the mission's unique call sign for the Lunar Lander; Snoopy.

A specially designed Peanuts art installation will be unveiled in front of Space Center Houston at Talon Park (under the T-38 astronaut training aircraft) with the Snoopy character in attendance.

Apollo 10 was the fourth human mission in the Apollo program, and the second to orbit the Moon. Launching May 18, 1969, it served as a "dress rehearsal" for the first Moon landing, testing all of the components and procedures, enabling the Apollo 11 landing two months later.

The Apollo command module used the call sign of the Peanuts cartoon character Charlie Brown, while the lunar module was named for his dog and sidekick, Snoopy.  Apollo 10 Commander Tom Stafford, Lunar Module Pilot Gene Cernan and Command Module Pilot John Young adopted the Peanuts characters as Apollo 10's semi-official mascots. The association led to a decades-long award of distinction for employees who have contributed significantly to human spaceflight safety, known as the Silver Snoopy Award.

NASA and Peanuts Worldwide once again are joining forces to collaborate on educational activities that share the excitement of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) with a new generation of explorers and thinkers. The collaboration, formalized though a Space Act Agreement, provides an opportunity to update the Snoopy character by Charles M. Schulz, for space-themed programming with content about NASA's deep space exploration missions, 50 years after its initial collaboration began during the Apollo era.

Activities at Space Center Houston begin Thursday morning, and will include launch of the Peanuts Global Artist Collective, the unveiling of "The Heavens and the Earth," art installation featuring a retired International Space Station (ISS) training module mockup wrapped in an original Charlie Brown and Snoopy motif created by renowned artist Kenny Scharf.

Students and the public will be able to engage in STEM activities developed by Peanuts, participate in the unveiling ceremony of the International Space Station training module and participate in Space Center Houston's Thought Leaders series later that evening.

(Source: NASA news release. Images from file)

FMI: www.nasa.gov