posted 09-14-2014 12:04 PM               

I was able to acquire a Silver Snoopy pin that had been awarded to an Apollo contractor worker during the Apollo era, however, when checking the names of all the pin recipients from NASA's official website, his was not listed.

posted 01-19-2015 05:31 AM               

This is an announcement of the Silver Snoopy incentive/recognition program, signed in print by Jim Lovell. Nowhere in three lengthy paragraphs does it say that they will be flown in space. I would think that such an interesting detail would have been pointed out if it was planned to occur.

posted 01-19-2015 08:57 AM               

As for the pamphlet, the focus of the text is on the honor itself, not its physical embodiment (which only gets a one line mention). The Silver Snoopy is not a memento like a flown flag or patch; it is intended as an award, which is why the letter may be more focused on its meaning than its pin.

Its wording also dates it to before the awards began, so it's possible the details of the pin (the "emblem" as the letter simply describes it) may not have yet been decided.

posted 09-29-2017 12:53 PM               

One thing that's noteworthy is that only half of the early flights carried any pins at all, and when they did only 50 to 100 examples were flown per mission. Although data for four of the flights is missing it's likely that only around 800 pins were flown from 1981 to 1986.

By contrast, 732 pins were carried on the STS-26 return-to-flight mission in 1988, and 932 on STS-27. Far more pins were carried on the first two missions of 1988 than on all the previous missions combined, and many of the subsequent missions also carried hundreds of pins. Many of the OFKs from 1988 onwards are currently unavailable but if we assume the missing data follows the average we can calculate that the pins from 1981-1986 (around 800) represent only around 4% of the total pins flown on all shuttle missions (estimated at around 19,000).

Interestingly, although the number of pins with known flight numbers and award dates is pretty small — particularly for those early missions — the small sampling we do have seems to support the hypothesis that the silver hallmark used on the backs of the pins transitioned from the full "STERLING" to the abbreviated "STER." between the 24th and 26th flights.

To date, I've identified five distinct varieties of "R" "STERLING" hallmarked pins, three of which had clear proof they were flown on the 1981 to 1986 missions (the other two had no proof of origin). All the "R" "STER." hallmarked pins with known flights identified date from STS-26 (1988) onwards.