January 9, 2016 2:05 pm
Changing of the Guard
USPS Stamp commemorating Apollo 11 landing on the moon. Issued in 1969.
This is the first stamp I remember buying for myself. I was 8, and I proudly put them on every letter I sent to relatives and summertime friends, regardless of the wasted postage (first class stamps back then were only ¢8).
When I was a kid, we went to the moon. My generation had Apollo, and we had Star Wars, and we had the Saturn V and the Lunar Module and the Space Shuttle, and we had Earthrise and The Pale Blue Dot.
Now, I’m a father. I have an eleven-year-old daughter who is as crazy about space as I was. And her generation has its sights set on Mars. They have their own new Star Wars cycle. They have Curiosity and Cygnus and Falcon 9/Dragon and Orion and the SLS. And they have The Day the Earth Smiled and the heart on Pluto.
And now, her generation has their own space stamps. One sheet celebrates New Horizons arrival at Pluto. And the other showcases the beauty of the solar system we had only glimpsed from a distance when I was a kid.
Oh, the places they will go.
USPS stamps commemorating the exploration of Pluto by New Horizons. To be issued in 2016.
USPS stamp showcasing the planets of our solar system. To be issued in 2016.
That’s it for now. Keep Looking Up!
–Jeffrey Simons
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