posted 04-21-2020 10:25 AM               

I brought in an award that is a NASA award. Actually, I found it in a burn pile and there was this little Snoopy pin with this letter and it explains that the first black man into space rode on the last successful mission of the Challenger with this Snoopy pin.

The letter is dated 2002 and starts off being written by a grandmother to her grandchild on the occasion of his graduation from high school. On the reverse of the letter, is a note from the grandfather describing in part the Silver Snoopy. He writes that it launched with the first black astronaut on board Challenger, on "the first time it took off and launched at night."

But then he writes, "This was the last flight before the Challenger crashed."

Both statements, of course, cannot be correct, but they do share one thing in common: Guy Bluford, the first African American to fly into space, flew on both STS-8, the first space shuttle mission to launch at night, and STS-61A, the last successful flight of Challenger before the January 1986 tragedy.

Oddly, Antiques Roadshow then identified the pin as dating to 1988 with its on-screen graphics (as shown above).

The grandfather also enclosed with the letter what was likely an Apollo 11 Manned Flight Awareness medallion as he mentions it was "made from parts of the spacecraft that was the first to land on the moon." The medallion was not shown on Antiques Roadshow.