Poster, NASA, Manned Flight Awareness

This poster depicts an astronaut in the center of the triangular shape of the Apollo Command Module. He is surrounded by men and women performing the variety of jobs needed to get an astronaut safely to the Moon and back. “Snoopy” is on the bottom left of the poster.

Cartoonist, Charles, M. Schulz and United Feature Syndicate, distributor of the Peanuts comic strip, agreed to have “Snoopy” be the icon for job safety at NASA. Schulz produced drawings of “Snoopy” to use on posters. Following a tragic fire that killed three Apollo astronauts on January 27, 1967, Albert M. Chop, director of public affairs at the Manned Spacecraft Center, developed the Silver Snoopy Award, and negotiated the use of “Snoopy” with Schulz and United Feature Syndicate.

NASA’s Manned Flight Awareness, a program begun in 1963, and later renamed Space Flight Awareness, created posters to enhance employee motivation for job quality and flight safety within NASA and its contractors.