‘Star Trek’ Stamps: NASA, Series 50th Anniversary Commemorated by USPS
Over the past few years, the United States Postal Service (USPS) has been launching special edition stamps to commemorate great cultural events and stars, such as Elvis Presley, through their Forever series. Now, as the Star Trek Original Series celebrates its 50th anniversary, the Starship Enterprise gets its own treatment – and so does NASA, honoring the space era!
According to the official Star Trek website, the postal service joined in the celebrations of the Original Series' anniversary with a set of stamps designed by The Heads of State, from four digital illustrations inspired by some of the most iconic images from the saga, including two designs of the U.S.S. Enterprise, the silhouette of a crewman and, of course, the Vulcan salute made famous by Leonard Nimoy, Mr. Spock, who passed away in 2015.
The project's art director was Antonio Alcala.
USPS' 2016 Forever special edition stamps include a celebration of the iconic science fiction show as well as an ode to space travel in general, as they're also releasing a new one dedicated to NASA's New Horizons, which last year made the amazing feat of reaching icy dwarf planet Pluto.
Back in 1991, USPS released a 29-cent "Pluto: Not Yet Explored" stamp that the New Horizon teams remembers to this day: they even placed one on board!
"Since the early 1990s, the old 'Pluto Not Explored' stamp served as a rallying cry for many who wanted to mount this historic mission of space exploration," said Alan Stern, the principal investigator of New Horizons, in a statement released through NASA. "Now that NASA's New Horizons has accomplished that goal, it's a wonderful feeling to see these new stamps join others commemorating first explorations of the planets.
It's a big spacy year when it comes to stamps in the U.S., as USPS will also released a "Views of Our Planets" series of stamps with eight new colorful ones featuring all eight of our Solar System's giants.
Currently, the Forever stamps sell at 49¢.