posted 09-18-2011 07:03 AM               

Space Cover #127: Palestine, TX Balloon Covers

Well, I was kind of struggling with what to write about for this SCOTW, and hit my trade box for ideas. There I came up came with a Palestine, TX (the folks in TX call their town "Pal-est-een") balloon flight cover. This one is postmarked May 2, 1973 for a study of high altitude radiation with a professor from the University of Maryland. NASA, even today, launches a lot of low-cost near-space scientific studies on balloons that get virtually no attention from the press, or lately, the philatelic servicers.

However, back in the 1960's and '70's, some cover servicer was very diligent about documenting these flights launched from Palestine. I don't collect these covers, and I am no expert, but did have this one in my trade box. I have seen other examples of these from the early 1960's to the late 1970's, and with several different cachet types. And have heard rumblings through the grapevine that there are around 400 differently dated Palestine balloon flight covers out there! These are available for anywhere from a buck to quite a bit more today.

Maybe our august group can offer some counseling to the folks who wonder about these covers? So, does anyone know what the story is on these? Cachet maker? Other cachet types? Cachet types vs. flight dates? A list of cover/flight dates? Any help appreciated...

posted 09-18-2011 09:03 PM               

Scientific ballooning under the National Science Foundation was established in 1961 with three launch sites considered - Hope, Arkansas was the initial choice, but was turned down by the FAA due to an unacceptably high air traffic density. Crockett, Texas and Palestine, Texas were next with Palestine being the final selection.

Launches began in mid-1962 with the first launch from Palestine taking place on July 20, 1962. There were covers created for this first flight by servicer Bob Boudwin. The first launch from the "official" launch pad took place on December 12, 1962 with the launch of Stratoscope II. With this flight George Goldey began creating covers for the Palestine balloon flights.

Many of the flights were for the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). Though there were over 70 flights per year it seems like only seven to ten had covers created for them. Regular servicing stopped in the mid 1960s with last one I know of from Boudwin/Goldey being in 1966 with sporatic covers produced after that until a new servicer came onto the scene in 1970.

In late 1970 Ruth Ward from Palestine began servicing covers for the majority of flights from Palestine including getting a few missions where covers were flown on board the balloon. Several of the flights were also related to the space shuttle development. She used two or three basic cachet designs (like the one Pooz shows) with specific mission information added. The last Ward cover I have is for a flight on December 2, 1977.

Here are covers for the first and second flights from Palestine and also a Goldcraft cover for the December 12, 1962 Stratoscope flight.

There is no complete listing of Palestine covers that I know of - though many are listed in Jack McMahan's space cover catalog.

Due to safety concerns the majority of flights now originate from Fort Sumner, New Mexico. After almost four years of not performing balloon launches at Palestine, a stratospheric flight took place last April to loft a payload developed by the Louisiana University at Lafayette which consisted of a small lightweight and robust probe to gather atmospheric and cosmic ray measurements. The flight lasted nearly three hours.

Though actual flights are now minimal, many flights - such as those launched in Antarctica - are controlled from Palestine's facilities.

posted 09-19-2011 06:50 PM               

Yeknom - dang, that 1962 first flight cover looks familiar! Did we do a trade for that??

And Ross, in one of my previous professional lives, I was a participant in a design review for the (then) upcoming Ultra-Long-Duration-Balloon (ULDB) in 1998, and it was going to launch from Alice Springs! I lost track of the ULDB that finally flew, and it may have launched from elsewhere, but I have good memories of the Alice Springs folks! Top notch!

Plus there are some good wines coming from Alice Springs now... although not really a cS comment here...lol.

posted 09-20-2011 04:54 PM               

NASA related ballooning related sites:

• Wallops Flight Facility - Wallops Island, VA - home of the Balloon Program Office
  
• Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility (named Columbia after the STS-107 tragedy) -
• Palestine, TX - launch site (summer) and control center for other launch sites
  
• Launch site - Fort Sumner, NM (fall)
  
• Launch site - McMurdo, Antarctica (winter)
  
• Launch site - Alice Springs, Australia (spring)
  
• Launch site - Kiruna, Sweden (spring)

posted 08-01-2018 12:56 AM            

The top one from 1972 carried an experiment for Rice University located in nearby Houston.

The next one carried an experiment for NASA Goddard and happened to occur on Splashdown Day of the first Skylab crew.

The bottom cover postmarked during the second crewed Skylab mission carried an experiment for NASA Marshall.