Celebrating Coins and Space!
The US Mint and NASA Celebrates Decades of Coins and Space What’s been to Mars, the International Space Station, the Hubble Space Telescope, and the Kuiper Belt? The answer may surprise you – U.S. coins. In addition to sending coins to space, the Mint also designs coins and medals to honor the accomplishments of the U.S. space program. This year, two coin programs mark the achievements of the Gemini and Apollo space programs: the 2019 Native American $1 Coin and the Apollo 11 50th Anniversary Commemorative Coin Program. The 2019 Native American $1 Coin highlights Mary Golda Ross of the Cherokee Nation, who was the first Native American engineer in the U.S. space program. Her research for Lockheed Martin’s top secret think tank, Skunk Works helped to develop the Agena spacecraft for the Gemini and Apollo space programs. The coin design features Ross writing calculations, with an Atlas-Agena rocket launching into space in the background with an equation inscribed i