Launching today to celebrate British Science Week, the Science Museum Group is excited to be partnering with Blue Origin’s nonprofit, Club for the Future, on Postcards to Space, a project that inspires children to imagine the positive impact they can have on the future and to pursue careers in STEM subjects.
Club for the Future’s Postcards to Space asks children from across the globe to fill in postcards with their thoughts and ideas of the future and for the next generation of space travel. On a future mission, Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket will fly these postcards to space, and on their safe return, they’ll be stamped ‘flown to space’ and delivered back to the creators as a space-flown keepsake.
To mark the launch of this initiative in the UK, local schools were invited to enter a competition to design the perfect interplanetary postbox, where participants can deposit their Postcards to Space.
The winning entry was designed by ‘Team Rocket Science’ from St Mary’s Catholic Primary School, Hammersmith, and made by technicians at the museum.
Hayley Saunders, class teacher from St Mary’s Catholic Primary School said: ‘Everyone at St Mary’s was so excited for the opportunity to enter this competition with the Science Museum. The children spent their afternoon designing their postboxes and postcards to send to space. We're so grateful to have been chosen to participate in this opportunity and to have children from our school win is such an amazing experience! One they'll all never forget.’
The winning postbox will be on display for the rest of British Science Week at the entrance of the Exploring Space gallery. After this time, schools wanting to take part in Postcards to Space can do so either via the postbox (located in Wonderlab: The Equinor Gallery) or by downloading postcards online and sending them off to Club for the Future directly.
The Postcards to Space initiative with Club for the Future is one of several projects celebrating the Science Museum Group’s commitment to Inspiring Futures and the next generation of space explorers, alongside the brand-new Mission to Space show for schools.
Gwen Griffin, Executive Director of Club for the Future, who announced the winning design at today’s ceremony said: ‘We want to give every human on the planet access to space, and sending a postcard on a New Shepard rocket is a great start. Our partnership with the Science Museum Group will inspire students to see what’s possible when they pursue STEM careers for the benefit of Earth.’
Susan Raikes, Director of Learning at the Science Museum said: ‘This is a wonderful opportunity for schools to encourage their pupils’ creativity and inspire them to think positively about their futures as potential space explorers. We’re delighted to be partnering with Club for the Future on this UK project launch today and look forward to inspiring even more scientists and engineers of the future together.’
You can find out more about Postcards from Space including the template to download postcards here.
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For more information and images, please contact Lucy Preston in the Press Office on +44 (0)20 7942 4718 or lucy.preston@sciencemuseum.ac.uk.
About the Science Museum
The Science Museum is part of the Science Museum Group, the world’s leading group of science museums that share a world-class collection providing an enduring record of scientific, technological and medical achievements from across the globe. Over the last century the Science Museum, the home of human ingenuity, has grown in scale and scope, inspiring visitors with exhibitions covering topics as diverse as robots, codebreaking, cosmonauts and superbugs. 2020 marked a decade of transformation for the museum with the opening of the largest medical galleries in the world—Medicine: The Wellcome Galleries and Science City 1550-1800: The Linbury Gallery—the story of how London became a hub of discovery during 1550-1800. The Science Museum was named a winner of the prestigious Art Fund Museum of the Year prize for 2020. www.sciencemuseum.org.uk. Follow on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
About Blue Origin
Blue Origin was founded with a vision of millions of people living and working in space for the benefit of Earth. Blue Origin envisions a time when people can tap into the limitless resources of space and enable the movement of damaging industries into space to preserve Earth, humanity’s blue origin. Blue Origin is working today to create that future by developing reusable launch vehicles and in-space systems that are safe, low cost, and serve the needs of all civil, commercial, and defence customers. Blue Origin’s efforts include flying astronauts to space on New Shepard, producing reusable liquid rocket engines, developing an orbital launch vehicle with New Glenn, building next-generation space habitats, and returning to the surface of the Moon. These endeavours will add new chapters to the history of spaceflight and move all of humanity closer to that founding vision. For more information about Blue Origin, please visit BlueOrigin.com.
About Club for the Future
Founded by Blue Origin in 2019, Club for the Future is a foundation whose mission is to inspire future generations to pursue careers in STEM and to help invent the future of life in space. The Club and its collaborators are doing this through Postcards to Space, space-focused curriculum, and access to space on Blue Origin’s rockets.
About Discover South Kensington
Discover South Kensington brings together the Science Museum and other leading cultural and educational organisations to promote innovation and learning. South Kensington is the home of science, arts and inspiration. Discovery is at the core of what happens here and there is so much to explore every day. discoversouthken.com
