NASA’s planetary messenger
In 2011, USPS issued a pair of stamps to honor NASA’s Mercury program and the planet Mercury itself. On one stamp, astronaut Alan Shepard is shown against a backdrop of the Mercury capsule that helped him become the first U.S. citizen to reach space, which he did in 1961. The second stamp features NASA’s Messenger spacecraft, the first to enter Mercury’s orbit, a feat accomplished in March 2011.
“These stamps, which will go out by the millions across this country, are a testament to the thousands of NASA men and women who shared dreams of human spaceflight and enlarging our knowledge of the universe,” Charlie Bolden, NASA administrator and former astronaut, said during the stamps’ unveiling at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida.
