posted 04-26-2009 03:35 PM               

Space Cover #2, The X-15's Teething Pains

Fifty years ago this month, the X-15 was going through its "teething pains", trying to get a first glide-flight on the books. The X-15 had been taken aloft under the wing of its NB-52 mother ship three times - once as an intentional captive flight on March 10, 1959, and twice as aborted attempts at a glide-flight. This third captive flight, on April 10, 1959, was documented on the cover shown below. Both auxiliary power units on the X-15 failed before the drop, aborting this attempt. The X-15 finally underwent a glide-flight on June 8, 1959, and a rocket-powered flight on Sept 17, 1959. The X-15 went on to perform 199 total free flights, including 13 that earned its pilots astronaut wings (some posthumously).

This cover was postmarked at Edwards, Ca. (the same post office as Edwards AFB, Ca., just different postmark hubs) on April 10, 1959, for that third captive flight. It was most likely un-cacheted at the time of postmarking with the computer-generated cachet applied fairly recently. I don't know who made the cachet - anyone know?

Covers for the March 10 captive flight are known. Edwards postmarked covers for the June 8, 1959 glide flight are unknown to me. Has anyone seen one?

Starting with the Sept 17 flight, George Goldey printed cachets for the X-15 flights up until around 1963. Boy Scout Troop 141 at Edwards developed a rubber stamped cachet (aka - Boy Scout Cachet) in the 1960 timeframe that became the norm for most subsequent X-15 covers through the end of the program in 1968.

posted 05-18-2009 11:21 AM               

I also agree, this appears to have been added much more recently.