Sesame Street Characters ‘On Board’ As NASA Counts Down to Orion’s Test Flight

When Sesame Street premiered Nov. 10, 1969, humans had just set foot on the moon for the first time. The show is now in its 45th season, and today’s audience will view human spaceflight in a brand new way – Mars, our nearest planetary neighbor, is our next frontier. NASA’s Orion spacecraft will transport and protect astronauts on the riskiest parts of their journeys to deep space destinations: leaving Earth and returning home.

The astronauts of the 2030s and beyond are today’s preschoolers. NASA and Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit educational organization behind Sesame Street, have joined forces to help educate this new generation of explorers, dubbed “the Mars generation,” in a whole new way. The collaboration started with Sesame Street characters submitting their Journey to Mars boarding passes and signing an “I’m on Board” banner, leading up to the December 4th launch of the Orion spacecraft. And today, the countdown to launch begins!

Over the next ten days,   NASA and Sesame Street will share comic strips, videos and graphics of some of their most popular Muppet characters interacting with Orion concepts to help build awareness of human spaceflight, Orion’s flight test and NASA’s Journey to Mars.

The 10-day countdown incorporates some of Sesame Street’s most beloved Muppet characters including Elmo, Cookie Monster, Grover, and Slimey. The characters will start the countdown by sharing what item they would pack on their Journey to Mars, describing what their Journey to Mars would be like as an Orion crew member, and using their ABCs to better understand the Orion spacecraft.  At the end of the countdown, Elmo will join NASA at Orion’s launch!

The collaborative effort will introduce Sesame Street’s current pre-school audience—the future explorers, scientists and engineers—to a new generation spacecraft and space exploration missions that will ultimately lead to Mars. By weaving in STEM education themes, stimulating  preschoolers’ natural curiosity and emphasizing the team effort it takes to place humans on Mars, this partnership is a natural extension of Sesame Street’s mission to help all kids grow up smarter, stronger, and kinder – all while moving the next generation one step closer to the next giant leap for humankind