posted 04-04-2007 02:34 PM               

Both Irwin's and Scott's lunar module PPKs were never retrieved from Falcon as the crew forgot them before heading back to Earth.

posted 04-04-2007 02:40 PM               

These 398 were properly packaged for flight and carried on board Apollo 15 by Scott in a pocket of his space suit...

posted 04-04-2007 02:43 PM               

Beforehand, the 400 (later discovered to be only 398 after splashdown) Scott-Sieger postal covers were hand delivered to the post office (HQS Bldg.) at Kennedy Space Center just after midnight early launch morning. There was a postal employee working late there and had the covers machine cancelled, as requested from the astronaut support office, even though the liftoff of Apollo 15 was planned for 9+ hours away.

Once the special cachet envelopes were processed in less than 15 minutes or so, the batch of covers were brought to a nearby facility, the Manned Spacecraft Operations Building (also known as the Operations and Checkout Facility), where the batch of covers were vacuum packed so that the bundle was not thicker than 5 cm. Next, they were sealed in fireproof Teflon-coated fiberglas, and delivered to Launch Complex 39A's White Room after Scott and his crewmates had arrived at the pad for their final launch preparations and spacecraft entry.

While there, Scott received the special package and put the small bundle into one of his leg-pockets of the spacesuit he had on.

During prior conversations about the Shamrock covers, there was no way such envelopes were a part of the Sieger bundle, nor, put anyplace else on Scott's person and/or Irwin (inside a spacesuit pocket or container) as all of Irwin's Shamrock covers were listed and "approved okay" by NASA prior to launch — but only as a part of his command module PPK.

posted 04-04-2007 02:45 PM               

I do believe, perhaps starting with Apollo 11, that NASA and the government kept their own kit aboard the landing crafts. But I do not believe, just my own opinion for now, that any such contents of a mysterious "third" kit contained any personal astronaut-owned souvenirs.

So far, from what I can gather, it would appear that only NASA and various government agency issued flags of the nations, U.S. states and territories, perhaps some mission patches, and possibly other government-related items may had been the contents of a third kit aboard the later lunar module missions.

In regards to the carried stamp kit aboard Falcon, as I understand it, that was a completely separate container not related to any of the provided or astronaut-issued PPKs. Besides, there were only two Apollo flights that flew a postal-related "kit," if you will, — Apollos 11 and 15 — in which both were approved by the U.S. postal service.

posted 04-04-2007 03:54 PM               

Irwin reported that the kits were on Scott's side of the LM (left side), therefore, he said it was Scott's task to bring them over to Endeavour. Irwin also said his LM PPK contained more envelopes, stamps, medallions, flags, shamrocks, and more!

Included were at least a hundred $2 bills that he and Scott were going to split after the voyage. Even some of Worden's things were carried along with a wedding ring for a NASA friend of Irwin family, and a Marine flag from Cunningham that he overlooked on his Apollo 7 trip.

posted 04-05-2007 09:40 AM               

I have another question: Apollo 15 was launched at 13:34 UTC (Greenich Meantime) being 8:34 local time at KSC (EST = UTC - 5 hours). The astronauts went up to their capsule by elevator some three hours earlier. Obviously the guy sealing the covers fireproof had to do it in the middle of the night if time schedule was as described.