[FOTZeiss] Fw: Project Mercury & MESSENGER Postage Stamp Tributes

[Glenn A. Walsh]

FYI

gaw

Glenn A. Walsh, Project Director,
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--- On Tue, 4/5/11, Ron Baalke <baalke at ZAGAMI.JPL.NASA.GOV> wrote:

> From: Ron Baalke <baalke at ZAGAMI.JPL.NASA.GOV>
> Subject: US Postage Stamps Tributes Project Mercury & MESSENGER
> To: HASTRO-L at listserv.wvu.edu
> Date: Tuesday, April 5, 2011, 3:45 PM

> http://www.usps.com/communications/newsroom/2010/pr10_125.htm#11th
> 
> United States Postal Service
> OR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
> December 28, 2010
> 
> The 50th anniversary of America's first manned spaceflight
> is being 
> commemorated with the issuance of two stamps. The stamps go
> on sale May 4.
> 
> One stamp salutes the National Aeronautics and Space
> Administration's 
> (NASA) Project Mercury, America's first manned spaceflight
> program, and 
> NASA astronaut Alan Shepard's historic flight on May 5,
> 1961, aboard 
> the spacecraft Freedom 7.
> 
> The other stamp draws attention to NASA's unmanned
> MESSENGER mission, a 
> scientific investigation of the planet Mercury. On March
> 18, 2011, 
> MESSENGER will become the first spacecraft to enter into
> orbit around Mercury.
> 
> These two historic missions---Shepard's Mercury flight and
> MESSENGER's 
> orbit of Mercury---frame a remarkable fifty-year period in
> which America 
> has advanced space exploration through more than 1,500
> manned and unmanned 
> flights.
> 
> The Project Mercury and MESSENGER Mission stamps were
> designed by Donato 
> Giancola of Brooklyn, NY, under the direction of Phil
> Jordan of Falls Church, 
> VA. A three-time winner of the Hugo Award for Best
> Professional Artist, 
> Giancola is known for his cover illustrations for science
> fiction authors, 
> including Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, Phillip K. Dick, and
> Arthur C. Clarke. 
> His luminous works for J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit and The
> Lord of the Rings 
> have received recognition through more than a dozen
> awards.
> 
> Giancola based the stamp designs on NASA photographs and
> images. The Project 
> Mercury stamp depicts Shepard, the Mercury capsule Freedom
> 7, and the 
> Redstone launching rocket. The MESSENGER Mission stamp
> depicts the MESSENGER 
> spacecraft in orbit around the planet Mercury.
>