May the fourth is a date widely associated with the Star Wars movies, which popularized the phrase “may the force be with you.” Through a little word play, the fourth day of May has punnily become Star Wars Day because it falls on “May the fourth.” And surely May 4 marks a fine day for catching up on the films from the ever-expading universe of Star Wars. However, let’s not forget that one reason Star Wars became so popular when the franchise’s first film hit the silver screen back in 1977 was America’s fascination with all things space at the time.
Twenty years earlier, Russia’s Sputnik satellite kicked off the space race that compelled the United States to fast-track its own space program and put people on the Moon by the close of the 1960s – a lofty goal met with the three astronauts aboard Apollo 11 in July 1969. The 1970s, when Star Wars launched to fame, was a decade of innovation for the U.S. space program. It was when the nation’s first successful space station (Skylab) was sent into orbit, the U.S. sent the Voyager deep-space probes into their interstellar journeys, and NASA built the foundations of the Space Shuttle program that hurtled Columbia beyond Earth’s atmosphere in 1981.
In 2026, Americans once again are keeping their eyes to the skies as the Artemis missions promise to once again return people to the Moon. The successful Artemis II space mission in April 2026 sent humans back around the Moon’s orbit for the first time since the early 1970s and also ventured people farther into space than had ever before been achieved. The Artemis II mission further laid groundwork for future missions to the Moon, where NASA plans to land humans once again in 2028 and begin construction of a permanent Lunar base.
Numismatists who want to pay homage to Star Wars Day in their own astronomical way can look to the Apollo 11 Commemorative coins of 2019, which honored the 50th anniversary of the landing on the Moon. The United States three-piece Apollo 11 coins include a curved clad half dollar, silver dollar, and gold $5 piece, and they make a stunning statement in any collection hoping for a little extra numismatic force on May 4.