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Moon Books: Hergé's rocket as gifts for actual astronauts?

Ine
Member
#1 · Posted: 24 Sep 2019 08:59
Hello Tintin experts,

I've heard that each of the astronauts who walked on the moon were sent a model of the Tintin rocket as a commemorative gift. Can anyone verify this and clarify who made the gifts, to whom? And what model? I haven't been able to find any references to this gesture anywhere.

Thank you!
jock123
Moderator
#2 · Posted: 24 Sep 2019 18:16
I'm not aware of this, particularly, but that's not to say he didn't.

Hergé - as has been mentioned before - was known to correspond with various astronauts over the years, and the books (in English) were presented as gifts, including the Apollo 11 crew, to whom he also dedicated and presented the cartoon of Tintin, Calculus and the Captain greeting a startled astronaut, with the phrase, "Bienvenue sur la lune, Mr. Armstrong!". Along the way, several copies of the Moon books in French were autographed and dedicated by the astronauts themselves.

Patrick Baudy, the French Air Force Colonel who traveled on a 1985 Space Shuttle mission took things quite literally a stage or two further, and brought a post card from the Ils Ont Marché Sur La Lune exhibition (a design based on the Armstrong cartoon) into orbit - it was signed by Fanny Remi, Bob De Moor and Alain Barran from the Studios Hergé, and the mission crew.
He has been pictured holding a model of the rocket, which may have been a gift from the Studios team.

Whether Hergé gifted them with the moon rocket models you describe, as I mentioned at the start I can't say, but they would almost certainly have been the wooden rockets produced for sale in that time period by whoever had the license - I don't know if that is too early for Aroutcheff, but someone may know?

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