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Where no stamp has gone before.

The Stamp Collecting Report, I'm Lloyd de Vries.

Two dozen years ago, the U-S issued a set of 10 stamps showing the planets and our moon, and the U-S space probes sent to explore them. Not Pluto. It was still considered a planet then, and got a stamp, but there was no probe to illustrate. Too far away. Instead, it has the words “not yet explored.”

That’s no longer true. A U-S space probe, New Horizons, is about to fly past Pluto, sending pictures and reports back to Earth.

And it’s carrying one of those 29-cent stamps from 1991, along with eight other mementos.

You see, some of the NASA scientists on the project took that “not yet explored” phrase on the stamp as a personal challenge, and the stamp became an inspiration to explore what is now considered a “dwarf planet.”

U-S stamps have gone into orbit, and to the moon. But this has got to be the longest delivery ever for a stamp.

I'm Lloyd de Vries of The Virtual Stamp Club. For more on stamps and stamp collecting, visit virtual-stamp-club-dot-com.

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