posted 06-08-2024 07:14 AM               

The autograph material presented will generally show how astronauts in the past were more open and cooperative about autographing and also how well they generally applied their autographs — unlike the near-scribbles often now received from astronauts even when they do sign. Things change, and the space autograph hobby certainly has. Of course, commercialization of their autographs certainly has had a huge influence on astronaut autographs, especially through the mail requests — how many excellent collections were built in the past.

This is a NASA Johnson Space Center (JSC) stationary sheet. It was postmarked on July 10, 1978, the day the "Thirty-Five New Guys" of NASA Astronaut Group 8 reported to JSC to begin their space shuttle careers. All 35 flew at least once on shuttle flights, with many having illustrious spaceflight careers, such as Sally Ride becoming the first American woman in space and Shannon Lucid flying on five flights. But, sadly, four of those signing perished on Challenger.

This is a NASA litho (JSCL 162) that pictures all 35 Group 8 NASA Astronauts and signed by all 35. It was the result of just one request to JSC.

On January 16, 1978, the announcement was made naming the 35 new Space Shuttle astronauts and this cover is autographed by the astronaut selection board that selected them. The board included John Young, George Abbey, Deke Slayton and ten others. This multi-signed cover took several individual mailings, but George Abbey made it easier by him signing and kindly having five others also sign. Dr. Gibson was also helpful, in addition to him signing he also had three others sign.

posted 06-16-2024 10:35 AM               

This NASA/JSC litho was signed by all nine NASA astronaut candidates of Group 20, class of 2009, plus two of the five international candidates (Canada and Japan) selected along with the nine American candidates.

Those signing are Serena Aunon, Jeanette Epps (in person), Jack Fischer, Michael Hopkins, Kjell Lindgren, Kathleen Rubins, Scott Tingle, Mark Vande Hei and Gregory Wiseman, and international candidates Takuya Onishi and David Saint-Jacques. With several it is anyone's guess who's who, but most are possible to determine if knowing the names to look for. But without the names, most are unidentifiable. On the NASA sheet from 1978, most are easy to identify.

This autograph comparison is not to criticize, as us poor astronaut autograph collectors will take what we can, but the much poorer autograph quality, along with more difficulty in obtaining astronaut autographs for some time, are the reasons for less interest in post Mercury, Gemini, Apollo and shuttle astronaut autographs, at least for this one collector. Also, of course, commercialization has been a big factor.