What might be higher than the primary opportunity to see a Snoopy doll that flew into space? How concerning the probability to see three such dolls, including one which recently returned from a visit across the moon?
On Thursday (July 13), the Charles M. Schulz Museum in Santa Rosa, California opened “Snoopy in Orbit,” a brand new temporary exhibit featuring never-before-shown space-flown “Peanuts” comic strip artifacts.
“These are really the keystone objects for sharing the story of the continued relationship between NASA and Charles Schulz and ‘Peanuts,'” said Benjamin Clark, curator of the Charles M. Schulz Museum and Research Center, in an interview with collectSPACE.com.
The three Snoopy dolls on exhibit flew on three different missions. The oldest, made in 1969, began as Mike Massimino’s personal boyhood toy. Forty years later, after he became a NASA astronaut, Massimino took his Snoopy with him on board the space shuttle Atlantis for the last mission to service the Hubble Space Telescope.
Massimino has loaned his Snoopy to the museum for this display.
“Snoopy on Orbit” also features a small plush doll that flew to the International Space Station (ISS) aboard a Northrop Grumman Cygnus cargo spacecraft in 2019. The spacesuited Snoopy was displayed by Expedition 61 crewmates Jessica Meir and Christina Koch in a video from the space station as a part of that yr’s Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, which also debuted a large balloon of Snoopy dressed as a NASA astronaut.
The exhibit’s third Snoopy is its most traveled. The plush doll flew because the “zero-g indicator” (or ZGI) on NASA’s Artemis 1 Orion capsule on the primary flight across the moon by a human-rated spacecraft in greater than 50 years. The custom-made doll floated across the cabin through the 25-day mission while traveling 1.3 million miles (2.1 million kilometers) in late 2022.
“For probably the most recent Artemis ZGI, now we have video of the way it was made since it’s so different from from the preceding ones. The Snoopys which have been into space before were all commercially available Snoopy plush, but this one could be very special. It was created with materials approved by NASA using things they use for crewed flights. So it is actually fascinating to learn more about the way it was made,” said Clark.
Along with the flown dolls, the museum can be showing for the primary time a pen nib that was utilized by Schulz and a reproduction of a comic book strip that he drew that also flew on the Artemis 1 mission to the moon and back.
“We even have some original art by Charles Schulz, including certainly one of his earliest drawings of Snoopy, the astronaut,” Clark said. “And we even have original animation cells from a space-related animation project from the Nineteen Eighties [“The NASA Space Station” from “This Is America, Charlie Brown”].
Rounding out the artifacts within the exhibit are the NASA “Silver Snoopy” award presented to Schulz in 1968 and the agency’s Exceptional Public Achievement Medal that was bestowed to Jeannie Schulz in April of this yr in recognition of her role in extending the legacy and vision of her late husband by constructing upon the partnership between Peanuts Worldwide and NASA.
Before leaving the gallery, visitors can even have the option to “enter” the world of Snoopy and space.
“Now we have an interactive component as well, where now we have made a ‘Peanuts’ version of the ISS where visitors can stand in it and take pictures and have a little bit fun,” Clark told collectSPACE.
Established in 2002, the Charles M. Schulz Museum preserves, displays and interprets Schulz’s art, including the favored “Peanuts” comic strip he created in 1950. In 1968, after a fireplace on a launch pad claimed the lives of three astronauts, Schulz agreed to loan Snoopy to NASA to make use of as a security mascot. A yr later, “Snoopy” and “Charlie Brown” flew to the moon because the crew-chosen call signs for the Apollo 10 spacecraft.
In 2018, 18 years after Schulz’s death, Peanuts Worldwide entered a brand new agreement with NASA to increase Snoopy and the opposite Peanuts gang characters’ use to assist promote STEM (science, technology, engineering and arithmetic) education and public awareness of NASA’s deep space missions.
“Snoopy in Orbit,” which is open through Jan. 14, 2024, is the museum’s second exhibition devoted the history of Schulz’ work with the U.S. space program. “To the Moon: Snoopy Soars with NASA,” which debuted in 2009, has now been adapted right into a traveling exhibit currently on display on the Reading Public Museum in Pennsylvania.
A companion panel discussion, “3-2-1! Snoopy and the Schulz Museum in Orbit,” featuring Massimino, NASA Artemis 1 launch director Charlie Blackwell-Thompson and Melissa Menta, senior vice chairman of selling and communications for Peanuts Worldwide, is scheduled for Aug. 5 on the Charles M. Schulz Museum.
Click through to collectSPACE to see more photos from inside “Snoopy in Orbit,” the brand new exhibit now open on the Charles M. Schulz Museum.