{"id":528,"date":"2011-04-07T14:24:33","date_gmt":"2011-04-07T14:24:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dokosmuskrtkem.cz\/wordpress\/?page_id=528"},"modified":"2011-04-07T14:31:29","modified_gmt":"2011-04-07T14:31:29","slug":"flying-to-space-with-the-little-mole","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.dokosmuskrtkem.cz\/wordpress\/?page_id=528","title":{"rendered":"Flying to Space with the Little Mole (Do kosmu s Krtkem)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Famous Czech cartoon character Little Mole (Krtek or Krte\u010dek) will join the last flight of space shuttle Endeavour into space. U.S. astronaut Andrew Feustel will take a 19-centimeter toy version of the character as a personal item onboard the space shuttle.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-103\" title=\"Logo Do kosmu s Krtkem\" src=\"https:\/\/www.dokosmuskrtkem.cz\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/logo-dokosmu250.jpg\" alt=\"Logo Do kosmu s Krtkem\" width=\"250\" height=\"214\" \/>The Little Mole was created by Czech animator Zden\u011bk Miler in 1956 and has since then become very popular among children in Eastern Europe, Germany, Austria, China, and Japan. In one of the episodes from 1965 \u2013 titled \u201cThe Little Mole and the Space Spaceship\u201d \u2013 Krtek boards a rocket but something goes wrong and he ends up on an isolated island, only to be helped by a crab to be able to fly the rocket back home. Mr. Miler, now 90 years old, comments on Krtek\u00b4s real space shuttle voyage: \u201cI never imagined anything like this for Krtek.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Miler then approved of a toy designed specifically for NASA and of Krtek\u2019s mission logo. All of his work on sending Krtek to space has been pro bono. Krtek\u2019s space flight was also supported by the U.S. Ambassador to the Czech Republic Norman Eisen. \u201cWho would have believed that the Little Mole would actually make it into space one day on a real rocket,\u201d said the Ambassador who, according to his own words, watches and reads Krtek\u2019s stories with his own family.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-356\" title=\"Feustelovi s Krte\u010dkem\" src=\"https:\/\/www.dokosmuskrtkem.cz\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/Feustels-Krtek220.jpg\" alt=\"Feustelovi s Krte\u010dkem\" width=\"220\" height=\"160\" \/>On his last trip to space in 2009, Andrew Feustel, whose wife is partly of Czech origin, carried a book of poetry by Czech writer Jan Neruda titled \u201cCosmic Songs\u201d. For his next flight, Drew Feustel wanted to select an item that would capture attention of both children and adults. Krtek was then identified as an item that almost every Czech can relate to.<\/p>\n<p>Both Miler and Feustel were especially delighted to see that the project of sending Krtek to space will be accompanied by a broad variety of educational activities organized by the initiators of the project \u2013 the American Center of the U.S. Embassy in Prague, Czech Space Office, and the Astronomical Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences. \u201cIt is our hope that with Krtek\u2019s help, our mission inspires students and adults to excel in the study of science, technology, engineering and mathematics that will be essential to future space exploration and beneficial to human kind,\u201d said <a href=\"http:\/\/youtu.be\/GP22EDzS9F4\" target=\"_blank\">Andrew Feustel in a video message<\/a> sent to Prague\u2019s American Center.<\/p>\n<p>The educational activities take place all around the Czech Republic and include mostly talks about the space, space exploration and space flights. The project has a substantial online presence \u2013 a special website for Krtek and the Endeavour\u2019s mission STS-134 has been set up. Krtek\u2019s space voyage can also be closely followed on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/DoKosmusKrtkem\" target=\"_blank\">Facebook<\/a>, which serves as an interactive platform for its users \u2013 they can stay up-to-date with Andrew Feustel\u2019s and Krtek\u2019s mission and see photographs from project\u2019s activities. Facebook is also used for announcements of competitions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Famous Czech cartoon character Little Mole (Krtek or Krte\u010dek) will join the last flight of space shuttle Endeavour into space. U.S. astronaut Andrew Feustel will take a 19-centimeter toy version of the character as a personal item onboard the space &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dokosmuskrtkem.cz\/wordpress\/?page_id=528\">Cel\u00fd p\u0159\u00edsp\u011bvek <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":222,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-528","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dokosmuskrtkem.cz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/528","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dokosmuskrtkem.cz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dokosmuskrtkem.cz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dokosmuskrtkem.cz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/222"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dokosmuskrtkem.cz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=528"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.dokosmuskrtkem.cz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/528\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":533,"href":"https:\/\/www.dokosmuskrtkem.cz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/528\/revisions\/533"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dokosmuskrtkem.cz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}