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[b]New Snoopy Exhibition Opening September 12th[/b] Just before the first humans landed on the moon, Charlie Brown and Snoopy soared through space with NASA's Apollo 10 mission in May 1969. SDASM's new exhibition [i]To the Moon: Snoopy Soars with NASA[/i], opening September 12, examines the history of Apollo 10 and the Peanuts characters' role in that flight and in the NASA Manned Flight Awareness safety program. It is difficult to imagine-although some remember it well-the excitement that the race for the moon invoked forty years ago. As the decade of the 1960s was coming to a close, America and the rest of the world waited with great anticipation to see if NASA could achieve President John F. Kennedy's challenge, put forth in May 1961, of putting a human on the moon by the end of the decade. Consequently, it was a very great honor for Peanuts when the crew of Apollo 10 chose to nickname their command and lunar modules Charlie Brown and Snoopy, respectively. The flight of Apollo 10 in May 1969 was the "dress rehearsal" for the lunar landing that was scheduled for July 1969. Astronauts Thomas Stafford and Eugene Cernan piloted "Snoopy" within 50,000 feet of the lunar surface as they scouted the landing area for Apollo 11 while John Young orbited the moon in the command module "Charlie Brown." Peanuts creator Charles Schulz's involvement with NASA actually started a year before the 1969 flight of Apollo 10 when he was approached by NASA with a request to use Snoopy as their safety mascot. The Silver Snoopy Award program was instituted to improve the safety record of NASA employees and contractors. It proved to be a huge success with the astronauts and the employees. The Silver Snoopy pin is still a much-coveted award. Snoopy has been on the job for 40 plus years and continues to this day in his role as NASA's safety mascot. In [i]To the Moon: Snoopy Soars with NASA[/i], visitors will see Snoopy's trip to the moon in the March 1969 Peanuts strip series (beating NASA's record by a few months!), learn about the NASA's Silver Snoopy Award program, and view a Silver Snoopy pin that was flown to the moon. The exhibit also contains a children's creative play space where children can dress up like an astronaut and have their photograph taken with a life-size Apollo 10 astronaut. ([i]To the Moon: Snoopy Soars[/i] with NASA is included with regular admission to the Museum).
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