Category Archives: Space

Mail by Satellite? New Earthscapes Stamps Feature Landsat 7 Images

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Two of the fifteen new Earthscapes stamps feature images taken by Landsat 7, a remote-sensing satellite launched in 1999 to study the Earth’s surface.

The “Volcanic crater” stamp on the Earthscapes sheet shows Mount St. Helens and its surrounding area. The volcano’s explosive eruption of May 18, 1980, destroyed more than 200 square miles of forest, leaving behind a barren landscape. Today life is slowly returning to the area.

Acquired by Landsat 7 on September 7, 1999, the image of Mount St. Helens that appears on the stamp shows a recovering ecosystem. Shades of white and gray indicate still-bare slopes; dark “rivers” are deep channels cut by fast-moving flows of hot ash, rock, and gas. Green represents regrowth of vegetation.

The “Center-pivot irrigation stamp” shows circular patterns on cropland near Garden City, Kansas, where center-pivot sprinkler systems have been at work. Red circles indicate healthy, irrigated crops; lighter circles represent harvested crops. Landsat 7 acquired the image on September 25, 2000.

Managed jointly by NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey, the Landsat Program has been collecting information about our planet since 1972. For 40 years it has supplied data about the health of our environment and critical changes in natural resources that cannot be observed by the eye alone.

In addition to the scientific information they convey to researchers, Landsat images also can be strikingly gorgeous. “Landsat images make beautiful stamps,” says Doug Martin, a NASA scientist who works with Landsat data.

We couldn’t agree more.

Earthscapes Stamps Kick Off National Stamp Collecting Month

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Thank you to everyone who came out to NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, this past Monday for the dedication ceremony of the Earthscapes Forever® stamps!

Depicting America’s diverse landscapes on photos taken from ultra lights to satellites, the Earthscapes stamps provide a view of the nation’s diverse landscapes in a whole new way—from heights ranging from several hundred feet above Earth to several hundred miles in space. Each stamp’s unique perspective makes it a window into a world most of us never experience.The photographs on the stamps were all taken high above the planet’s surface, either snapped by orbiting satellites or carefully composed by photographers in aircraft.

“Once you’ve seen the world from above, you never look at it quite the same way again,” U.S. Postal Service Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President Joseph Corbett said. “That’s why the Postal Service is proud to offer these Earthscapes stamps, which invite us to take a bird’s-eye view of the land we all share.”

Joining Corbett in dedicating the stamps were NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Director Christopher Scolese; NASA Landsat Project Scientist Jeff Masek; Earthscapes stamp photographer Cameron Davidson; Smithsonian National Postal Museum Education Director K. Allison Wickens; Linn’s Stamp News Senior Editor-Digital Media Jay Bigalke; and WJLA/ABC-TV Meteorologist Bob Ryan.

“For nearly 50 years, NASA has been at the forefront of looking at Earth from the unique vantage point of space” Scolese said.

NASA uses a fleet of satellites to study Earth and to better understand the changing climate, its interaction with life, and how human activities affect the environment. Through partnerships with national and international agencies, NASA science enables the application of this understanding for the well-being of society.

What a way to kick off National Stamp Collecting Month! We are on cloud nine.

The Eagle Has Landed: Remembering Neil Armstrong

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Today we pause to remember Neil Armstrong (1930–2012), who, on July 20, 1969, became the first person to walk on the moon. “That’s one small step for man,” he famously said from the lunar surface, “one giant leap for mankind.”

The U.S. Postal Service has issued several stamps commemorating the historic achievement, which was the fulfillment of President John F. Kennedy’s 1961 commitment to put a man on the moon. This stamp was issued in 1999 as part of the Celebrate the Century: The 1960s stamp pane.

Armstrong died Saturday, August 25, near Cincinnati, Ohio.

Edgar Rice Burroughs: Curiosity on Mars

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So what does a postage stamp have to do with the successful landing of the Curiosity rover on Mars? According to one of the planet’s biggest Mars geeks, this incredible scientific achievement might not have been possible without the inspiration of recent stamp honoree Edgar Rice Burroughs.

Digital Color Postmark Keepsake (click image to order)

In a far-ranging interview, the late Ray Bradbury, author of The Martian Chronicles (1950), cited Burroughs as the writer who encouraged scientists to chase their Martian dreams.

“Edgar Rice Burroughs never would have looked upon himself as a social mover and shaker with social obligations,” Bradbury mused. “But as it turns out—and I love to say it because it upsets everyone terribly—Burroughs is probably the most influential writer in the entire history of the world.”

Bradbury enjoyed teasing snobs who cringed at the influence of science fiction, but he was making a serious point. Although Edgar Rice Burroughs wasn’t a scientist, his romantic visions of other planets sparked the dreams of generations of space explorers.

“I’ve talked to more biochemists and more astronomers and technologists in various fields, who, when they were ten years old, fell in love with John Carter and Tarzan and decided to become something romantic,” Bradbury said. “Burroughs put us on the moon. All the technologists read Burroughs. I was once at Caltech with a whole bunch of scientists and they all admitted it. Two leading astronomers—one from Cornell, the other from Caltech—came out and said, Yeah, that’s why we became astronomers. We wanted to see Mars more closely.”

Caltech, which manages the Jet Propulsion Laboratory for NASA, has already begun posting remarkable images from the surface of Mars, with many more to come. As we continue to “see Mars more closely,” remember what Burroughs bequeathed to us: a legacy of curiosity.

Tarzan™ Owned by Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. and Used by Permission.