At a
celebration of NASA's 50th anniversary held outside Washington, DC late last
month, a champagne toast was offered in recognition of the five decades of
exploration that the agency had accomplished. NASA had put men on the moon,
sent probes to the planets, and improved our understanding of life here at
home.
As invited
guests raised their glasses, many noticed that on the side of the flute was
imprinted with the logo for NASA's 50
years. As the toast ended and the glasses were emptied, some held onto to
the stemware as a souvenir of the event and NASA's anniversary.
These
glasses were just the latest example of five decades of
commemorative mementos collected in the wake of NASA's crowning space
achievements.
The public,
enamored by space exploration, has long desired to own a piece of NASA's
adventures. In some instances, the space agency met this longing by sharing
memorabilia that had been carried to orbit on some of its flights. More often,
companies looking to celebrate the United States' space achievements produced
collectibles inspired by NASA's missions and milestones.
Even the
astronauts got into the game. While America's first
astronaut, Alan Shepard had only enough room to fly a U.S. flag on his
sub-orbital Mercury flight, Virgil "Gus" Grissom, who followed
Shepard to space, packed his spacesuit pockets with miniature Mercury capsules
and rolls of Roosevelt dimes. Originally intended for friends and family
members, these early space-flown trinkets have been passed down and traded to
become very popular NASA collectibles.
In the
years that followed, astronauts extended the tradition, flying mementos for
those close to them, but also carrying medallions for themselves. They designed
mission patches, small embroidered and silk-screened emblems that uniquely
represented their flight. Replicas of these insignia were produced for the
public and the hobby of space patch collecting was born. Today, hundreds of
individual designs offer a colorful timeline to space history and allow
everyone the chance to own a tangible connection with their favorite space
explorers and missions.
Astronaut
autographs were also immensely popular. No sooner had NASA announced its first
seven astronauts in 1959, were requests for the newly named American heroes'
signatures received. NASA did its best to fulfill every request but the demand
was so great, that had the astronauts answered every mailed-in appeal, they
would have barely been left the time to train and fly. To balance this, NASA
sometimes employed a machine — an "autopen" — that traced a pattern
based on the astronauts' signatures onto photographs, books and other items
sent in by the public. To this day, children (of all ages) from around the
world write NASA for astronauts' autographs and continue to receive authentic
and autopenned responses.
That's not
to say that all NASA space collectibles are focused on the crewed missions.
Mementos from the agency's unmanned efforts to explore the solar system and
beyond have also been sought. Model and toy versions of planetary probes, such
as the Mars rovers, flew off store shelves. Postage stamps celebrating the
magnificent imagery captured by the Hubble Space Telescope were saved by more
than just stamp collectors, but by those who desired a souvenir of the orbiting
observatory.
When NASA
was established in October 1958, so was the hobby of collecting NASA
memorabilia. For 50 years, the public has celebrated the space agency through
the commemorative items it has inspired. And as NASA looks forward to its next
50 years exploring space, so will the public seek to own a part of those
achievements.
For a
year-by-year tour of the first 50 years of space collectibles, click through to
collectSPACE.com, a Houston-based website for space history enthusiasts.
advertisement
