This poster commemorates the 17th Planetary Congress of the Association of Space Explorers (ASE). The Congress took place September 26 – October 2, 2001 in Almaty, Kazakhstan. Bearing the authentic signatures of the participating astronauts from 8 nations, it is part of a series of limited edition posters that have been produced and signed at each ASE Congress since the Association was founded in 1985; 174 of these posters were signed at the 17th Congress.

The poster has two headings, the main heading in English at the top, with the Russian displayed at the bottom. Around the periphery are printed translations of “Association of Space Explorers” in the native languages of all ASE members who have flown in space. Clockwise, from upper left with English at the top, they include Vietnamese, Hindi, Bulgarian, Italian, Afghani, German, Polish, Japanese, Romanian, Dutch, Czech, Hungarian, Mongolian, Spanish, Arabic and French.

The central image of the poster was painted by cosmonaut Alexei Leonov and represents a Soyuz booster superimposed over a representation of the Aral Sea; the lily is the national flower of Kazakhstan. The background is taken from NASA archive photo # 83 HC 213 which has been used for each set of posters in the series

See a photo of the poster being signed

Signature Key

Tokhtar Aubakirov (Host)

United States

Loren Acton, Bo Bobko, John Fabian

Russia

Vladimir Aksyonov, Anatoli Artsebarski, Sergei Avdeev, Viktor Gorbatko, Alexander Ivanchenkov, Alexander Lazutkin, Alexei Leonov, Oleg Makarov, Gennadi Strekalov

International

Toyohiro Akiyama (Japan), Alexander Alexandrov (Bulgaria), Bertalan Farkas (Hungary), Miroslaw Hermaszewski (Poland), Georgi Ivanov (Bulgaria), Talgat Musabayev (Kazakhstan), Dorin Prunariu (Romania)

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