This poster commemorates the 6th Planetary Congress of the Association of Space Explorers. The Congress took place July 2-9, 1990 in Groningen, The Netherlands. Bearing the authentic and original signatures of fifty-three of the participating astronauts from ten nations, it is part of a series of limited Collector's Edition posters that have been produced and signed at each ASE Congress since the Association was founded in 1985. One hundred and nineteen posters were signed at the 5th 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 individuals who have flown in space. Clockwise, from upper left with English at the top, they include Vietnamese, Hindi, Bulgarian, Afghani, Mongolian, German, French, Romanian, Dutch, Czech, Arabic, Polish, Italian and Hungarian. The background is taken from NASA archive photo # 83 HC 213 which has been used for each set of posters in the series.

The central image of the poster was painted by Dutch artist Kees Wolthuis and reflects the theme of the 6th Congress - "Space Brings People Together". It shows a communications satellite, the planet Mars, the Earth and Moon and two representatives of humanity in the vast new environment of space. The image bespeaks humanity's dependence on artificial life support as it explores the heavens without traditional sources of sustenance and the simultaneous challenge of finding a new direction for our evolution without traditional sources of reference and orientation.

Signature Key

The Netherlands

Wubbo Ockels (Host)

United States

Loren Acton, *John-David Bartoe, Scott Carpenter, Gerald Carr, Pete Conrad, Walter Cunningham, John Fabian, Owen Garriott, Rick Hauck, Byron Lichtenberg, Don Lind, Jon McBride, Bruce McCandless II, Bob Overmyer, Don Peterson, Rusty Schweickart, Tom Stafford, Lodewijk van den Berg, James van Hoften, Taylor Wang, Don Williams

(* US Federal employee, signature not included on Collector's Edition Poster)

USSR

Vladimir Aksyonov, Alexander Alexandrov, Oleg Atkov, Vladimir Dzhanibekov, Anatoli Filipchenko, Georgi Grechko, Leonid Kizim, Vladimir Kovalyonok, Sergei Krikalev, Valeri Kubasov, Valentin Lebedev, Alexei Leonov, Oleg Makarov, Valeri Polyakov, Pavel Popovich, Valeri Ryumin, Svetlana Savitskaya, Vitali Sevastyonov, Igor Volk, Alexei Yelesiyev, Vyacheslav Zhudov

International

Alexander Alexandrov (Bulgaria), Jean-Loup Chretien (France), Bertalan Farkas (Hungary), Reinhard Furrer (Germany), Miroslaw Hermaszewski (Poland), Sigmund Jaehn (Germany), Ulf Merbold (Germany), Ernst Messerschmid (Germany), Abdul Ahad Momand (Afghanistan), Dorin Prunariu (Romania)

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