I was in Florida last week and toured Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral. From a historical, scientific and pop culture perspective, I was jazzed. You can imagine how happy I was to see my favorite beagle, Snoopy, located at the Apollo Space Center located at Kennedy. He’s there to commemorate the Apollo 10 flight into space where a Snoopy lunar module and a Charlie Brown command module entered lunar orbit. Apollo 10 paved the way for Apollo 11 to land men on the moon.
The family of “Peanuts” creator Charles Schulz along with Charles M. Schulz Creative Associates and United Media donated a 5-foot-tall Snoopy statue to NASA, honoring the space program’s 50th anniversary.
For over 40 years, Snoopy has been the mascot for NASA’s Space Flight Awareness Program, an award that recognizes employees’ contributions to the space flight success. These employees are given the Silver Snoopy award, a special honor awarded to NASA employees and contractors for outstanding achievements related to human flight safety or mission success.