Four months
before the first humans landed on the Moon in 1969, a beagle beat them to it.
More
important than racing the Russians, or passing Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin,
was that this "World Famous Astronaut" had beat "that stupid cat
who lives next door."
Of course,
Snoopy's moon trip only took place in the daily "Peanuts" comic
strips created by Charles M. Schulz and syndicated in newspapers the week of
March 10, 1969.
Two months
later though, Snoopy - along with his owner Charlie Brown - took a different
trip to the Moon, only this time it was for real. Serving as the spacecraft
names for NASA's final lunar landing dress rehearsal, Charlie Brown and Snoopy
cleared the way for Neil and Buzz to become the first men on the Moon.
Snoopy's
space flights, both those real and imagined, are celebrated in "To the
Moon: Snoopy Soars with NASA", a six-month exhibit
that opened Saturday at the Charles M. Schulz Museum in Santa Rosa,
California.
Approaching
the Moon
"We
were thinking about the fact that it was the 40th anniversary of Apollo 10 and
how wonderful it would be to explore that connection between the Peanuts
characters and NASA," curator Jane O'Cain told collectSPACE.
The
resulting exhibition, which runs January 31 through the 40th anniversary of the
first manned moon landing on July 20, 2009, uses both space exploration and
Schulz artifacts to guide visitors through the past four decades of Snoopy's
space adventures.
Divided
into four themed-sections, "Snoopy Soars with NASA" first introduces
how the comic strip beagle came to serve as the space agency's official safety
watchdog.
In 1968,
Snoopy began promoting
safety awareness and contamination control within NASA facilities
appearing on posters, many of which are on display in the exhibit. The agency
was granted use of the cartoon character so long as Schulz drew Snoopy on all
the NASA-related material and a copyright notice accompanied the artwork.
"I
believe their thought was that Snoopy was such a wildly popular character that
it was a way to gain people's attention and get them to concentrate more on
what was going on," explained O'Cain.
Schulz's
first drawing of Snoopy as an astronaut was not for a poster but rather a pin
to be flown in space and then rewarded to fewer than 1% of the NASA workforce
yearly.
"We
have [in the exhibit] the original drawing that Schulz did for the template for
the Silver Snoopy award pin," said O'Cain of the "astronauts'
personal award" presented for outstanding contributions to their missions'
success. "It is fascinating because it was his first attempt at drawing
Snoopy as an astronaut. You can actually see the pencil under-drawing as he
grappled with where would Snoopy's arms be if he was carrying the [oxygen
supply] suitcase and how would he draw the actual suit."
Fortunately,
Schulz had hands-on access to a flight suit courtesy the co-owner of the company
chosen to mint the Silver Snoopy pins, by nature he was also in the Marines.
"So
Don Fraser actually brought out his flight suit to Schulz's office here in
Santa Rosa so that Schulz could kind of get an idea about how to go about
drawing Snoopy as an astronaut," recounted O'Cain. "I am kind of
hoping that people will appreciate the kind of stretch that Schulz went to
capture Snoopy in that way."
Entering
lunar orbit
As a
secretary in the Astronaut Office in 1969, Jamye Flowers was assigned on temporary
duty to the Cape for about six weeks prior to launch to work with the Apollo 10
prime, backup, and support crews in the crew quarters' offices. It was there
that Flowers got caught up in the pre- flight preparations... literally.
Standing in
the hallway where the Apollo 10 astronauts would pass on their way to their
ride to the launch pad, Flowers held a large stuffed Snoopy doll...
Continue reading at
collectSPACE, where you can also view photographs from the "Snoopy
Soars with NASA" exhibit and see Charles Schulz's original rendering of
Snoopy as an astronaut.
Copyright 2009 collectSPACE.com. All rights
reserved.
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