#spaceweekend 4:
Space Holidays
This time we look at Christmas and New Year celebrations through a pretty random collection of space artifacts between fiction and reality:
Long before the Space Age/Race Santa used the new technology at his service:
In the 1920s, the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co. of Akron, Ohio, built a fleet of small civil airships that were used to demonstrate the value of lighter-than-air flight and to train future airship pilots. One of those airships, “Pilgrim I,” was the first designed for inflation with helium.
In 1925, “Pilgrim 1” was renamed the “Santa Claus Express” and used for toy delivery. In the photograph shown here, Pilgrim’s pilot Carl Wollam holds the gondola door for Santa, portrayed by Goodyear employee Jack Yolton.
Also the idea of Christmas beyond Earth was already intriguing people:
1938, “Jonathan Thomas and his Christmas on the Moon” — listen the complete collection of radio broadcasted stories:
1940, Los Angeles Christmas day parade — santa in the SUN GODDESS rocket ship!
December 1954 issue of ScienceFiction, featuring Santa with space-suited reindeer.
1959, Men Into Space, episode 12- First Men’s Christmas on the Moon:
“Space Age Santa Claus”: He’ll stir up egg nog in the Milky Way — A-side of the single from Delhi Records, 1961:
1952 — Trip to Outer Space with Santa! Promotional comic: 16 pages, color, standard comic size, no cover price
1955: Adventure in Carols Musical Album by Ferrante and Teicher
1964: Santa Claus Conquers the Martians is a science fiction film that regularly appears on lists of the worst films ever made has been viewed as a cult film as it’s so bad, it’s good!
Very first real Christmas in space — 1968:
After witnessing the blue marble of Earth rise above the desolate lunar landscape, Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and Bill Anders broadcast live to the home planet from lunar orbit. Nasa had not prepared anything for them to say and left it up to the crew. They read — in turn — from the book of Genesis, and Borman concluded the broadcast with: “good night, good luck, a Merry Christmas, and God bless all of you — all of you on the good Earth.”
Even to non-believers, the Bible reading was incredibly powerful, but not without controversy. Nasa was later taken to court by a prominent atheist for introducing religion into a government programme.
The case was thrown out by the United States Supreme Court, citing the fact that the government had no jurisdiction over something that happened in lunar orbit.
The first American Christmas holiday aboard a space station occurred in 1973 during the Skylab 4 mission to the first American space station Skylab. The station’s three-man crew saved up their food cans to create this space Christmas tree.
Meanwhile on Earth space exploration was inspiring Christmas decorations in various countries:
Soviet version:
Soviet Space propaganda lasted far longer than space race age, and kept reappearing in the New Year greeting cards for many years:
Happy New Year!
