Poster, NASA, Manned Flight Awareness

This poster depicts “Snoopy” holding an umbrella to protect a box. The text reads, “Kid gloves care will get us there.” On the box is the NASA label for spacecraft components in transit, “Critical Space Item / Handle with Extreme Care.”

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.