Astronaut Pin Badge - Pewter

Product Description: This Astronaut pin badge is made from lead-free pewter and is supplied on a pin with separate clasp. An astronaut is a person trained by a spaceflight programme to command, pilot, or be a crew member of an expedition to space. The pin badge is mounted on an information card that has an image of the Earth’s atmosphere with the Moon above on the front and has information about space exploration on the reverse.

Information: While the observation of objects in space, known as astronomy, predates reliable recorded history, it was the development of large and relatively efficient rockets during the early 20th century that allowed physical space exploration to become a reality.

The early era of space exploration was driven by a "Space Race" between the Soviet Union and the United States. The launch of the first man-made object to orbit the Earth, the USSR’s Sputnik 1, on 4 October 1957, and the first Moon landing by the American Apollo 11 craft on 20 July 1969 are often taken as landmarks for this initial period.

After the first 20 years of exploration, focus shifted from one-off flights to renewable hardware, such as the Space Shuttle programme, and from competition to cooperation as with the International Space Station (ISS).