Space Foundation CEO Will Speak at Pioneers Museum Snoopy Soars with NASA Exhibit

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (Nov. 14, 2012) – The Space Foundation is partnering with the Colorado Springs Pioneers Museum to support a special traveling exhibit from the Charles M. Schulz Museum called To the Moon: Snoopy Soars with NASA. The exhibition, which runs Nov. 17 through April 20, examines the history of Apollo 10 and the role characters from Schulz’s popular Peanuts comic strip played in that flight and in the NASA Manned Flight Awareness safety program. The Charles M. Schulz Museum is located in Santa Rosa, Calif.

The Space Foundation is supporting the exhibit by providing space spin-off products for display, graphics, an exhibit model, guest lecturers, promotional support and children’s interactive activities.

Space Foundation Chief Executive Officer Elliot Pulham will give a lecture entitled Blast Off! Exploring Space with the Space Foundation on Saturday, Dec. 15, at the Pioneers Museum at 2 p.m. The museum is located in a restored 1903 courthouse at 215 South Tejon Street in Colorado Springs, Colo.

The exhibition explores the long relationship between Schulz and NASA beginning in 1968 with the inception of the Snoopy, the Astronaut program, through the flight of Apollo 10, to the present day as the comic strip character Snoopy continues his important role as NASA’s safety mascot.

In 1969, NASA slated the Apollo 10 mission to test the lunar module in preparation for putting the first human on the Moon. Following NASA tradition, the Apollo 10 crew – Commander Thomas Stafford, Command Module Pilot John Young and Lunar Module Pilot Eugene Cernan – could choose a call sign for their spacecraft.

They named the lunar module Snoopy after Peanuts’ lovable beagle because, as Stafford explained, “…we’re going to the moon to find out all these facts and kind of snoop around.”

Cernan said that he then began promoting the idea of calling the command module Charlie Brown (Snoopy’s beleaguered “owner” and Peanuts’ key character) by hanging that nickname on Young. Apollo 10 blasted off from Cape Kennedy in Florida Sunday, May 18, 1969. Charles Schulz later wrote that perhaps the most unusual thing that had ever happened with his characters “…was the involvement of Charlie Brown and Snoopy with the Apollo 10 Lunar Expedition in 1969.”

Schulz, who authored the Peanuts comic strip from 1950 until he died in 2000, had personal ties to Colorado Springs, where he lived in 1951.

Admission is Free
The Colorado Springs Pioneers Museum is open Tuesday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Admission to the museum and to the exhibit is free. For more information, visit www.cspm.org/tothemoon/.

About the Space Foundation
The foremost advocate for all sectors of the space industry and an expert in all aspects of space, the Space Foundation is a global, nonprofit leader in space awareness activities, educational programs that bring space into the classroom and major industry events, including the National Space Symposium, all in support of its mission “to advance space-related endeavors to inspire, enable and propel humanity.” The Space Foundation publishes The Space Report: The Authoritative Guide to Global Space Activity and provides three indexes that track daily U.S. stock market performance of the space industry. Through its Space Certification and Space Technology Hall of Fame® programs, the Space Foundation recognizes space-based technologies and innovations that have been adapted to improve life on Earth. The Space Foundation was founded in 1983 and is based in Colorado Springs, Colo. Its world headquarters features a public Visitors Center with two main areas – the El Pomar Space Gallery and the Northrop Grumman Science Center featuring Science On a Sphere®. The Space Foundation also conducts research and analysis and government affairs activities from its Washington, D.C., office and has a field office in Houston, Texas. For more information, visit www.SpaceFoundation.org. Follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, and read about the latest space news and Space Foundation activities in Space Watch.

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