Treasure Chest Thursday - Space Program Souvenirs

My father worked for NASA during the Apollo and Shuttle programs and often received souvenirs of the space missions. This memento from Apollo 14 is a wallet-sized card with a small piece of the lunar surface safety line carried by the astronauts on the moon's surface on February 5-6, 1971. It has a picture of the launch in the background and the names of the Apollo 14 astronauts: Edgar D. Mitchell, Alan B. Shepard, Jr. and Stuart A. Roosa. The other side of the card has my father's name and the NASA logo used during the 1970s.

According to SpaceFlownArtifacts.com, the lunar safety line was a 100 foot long cord designed to be used to pull an astronaut to safety if they were unable to climb up a steep slope or out of a crater. Since the safety line wasn't used, it was decided to use it in mementos given as a thank you to the staff at the Kennedy Space Center for their efforts on the Apollo program. A letter of thanks was distributed along with the card, so I'll have to see if I can find the letter in my father's collection.