"Commemorative Mementoes" Hitching A Ride On Atlantis

A bit of early American history will become the latest space traveler with the liftoff of NASA's space shuttle Atlantis. STS-117 is scheduled to launch Friday, June 8, for its mission to the International Space Station.

A nearly 400-year-old metal cargo tag bearing the words "Yames Towne" and some commemorative mementoes are packed in Atlantis' mid-deck floor cargo space for the roundtrip flight. The hitchhiking trinkets honor this year's 400th anniversary of Jamestown, VA, the first permanent English settlement in North America.

"We found the tag at the bottom of a well during a dig at the James Fort," said William M. Kelso, director of archaeology at Historic Jamestowne for the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities. "It appears to be a discarded shipping tag from a crate or trunk that arrived from England around 1611. The artifact clearly marks Jamestown as a destination -- our nation's first address."

When the one-inch in diameter artifact lands back on Earth, it will have logged more than four million miles spanning four centuries. It will have traveled from England to Jamestown, then to and from the space station. Two sets of Jamestown commemorative coins, authorized by Congress and issued by the US Mint, will also take the ride.

A $5 gold piece and a silver dollar, both depicting Jamestown symbols, make up each commemorative coin set. When returned from space, NASA will present one set to Virginia Governor Tim Kaine for display at Jamestown Settlement, a 17th century living history museum. The second set will be displayed at the National Park Service's Historic Jamestowne Visitor Center.

The cargo tag and coin sets honoring Jamestown were given to NASA's Lesa Roe, director of the Langley Research Center in Hampton, VA before they made their way to the shuttle. "NASA's proud to be entrusted with this piece of exploration history and to extend America's great sense of adventure, exploration and heritage into the future of space," she said.

NASA will return the shipping tag to Historic Jamestowne in a new archaeological museum, the Archaearium. Since 1994, archaeologists at the Jamestown Rediscovery project have unearthed more than a million items. 

FMI: www.nasa.com, www.historicjamestowne.org, www.americas400thanniversary.com