June 30, 2004
Tobacco Lunar Science
Image Credit: Chuck Wood Collection |
Tobacco Lunar Science Public outreach is NASA's term for helping the general public become familiar with space science and NASA's contributions to it. Today, the Internet is the premier tool for broadly disseminating information about space. But these cards demonstrate an earlier effective method to bring the knowledge to the matches, err, the masses. Stiffeners - or tobacco cards - were first used in the 1870s to add strength to paper cigarette packages and over the next 70 years a vast variety of objects were pictured on the cards, often with a short explanatory text on the backside. The format was a forerunner of the Internet - a colorful image accompanied by a text short enough to keep a reader's interest - sort of like LPOD! This set is a short course on lunar science, circa 1928 when the cards were issued. Two cards are still useful - they show an atmospheric ring |
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