posted 03-03-2018 08:47 AM               

Space Cover 457: MIA Minnie Mouse

When this cover appeared on eBay for $3, it looked to be just another missile test of a Thor Able 1. For whatever reason, probably because it was dated in 1958 (April 23) and I hadn't found anything else of interest, I looked up the date in McMahan's catalog.

I was surprised to see his listing:

Re-entry test, nose cone carried MIA-1 or "Minnie Mouse." The 2nd stage did not fire. The nose nor (sic) the mouse were recovered. The shot fell short of the 5,000 mile goal. EV $150.

Those surprises don't happen every day or week or month, but it is always fun to find one like this.

I added the Red Rubber Stamp reading "MIA Minnie Mouse" so that my heirs don't sell it for a couple of bucks.

posted 03-05-2018 05:23 PM               

As you know, three MIAs were flown as part of Project Able from April to July 1958, each of which carried a mouse in a MIA package mounted in the nose cone of an Thor Able launch vehicle.

The first mouse, a female, was not instrumented since no telemetry was available for use in that flight. As Ray mentioned, the flight failed and the nose cone with passenger were never recovered.

But the second and third MIA flights were "flight successful" with MIA-2 on July 9, 1958, carrying another female mouse, this one named Laska.

A third and final MIA launch occurred two weeks later on July 23 carrying a male mouse named Benji.

There is every reason to believe that both Laska and Benji would had been recovered alive after their epic space voyages if their "Mouse House" nose cones had been retrieved from their ocean landings. Unfortunately, though, after a few days of searching for the nose cones, they could not be found.

At the time in 1958, since both mice flew to a maximum altitude of 1400 statute miles, they returned to Earth from a higher altitude than that reached by any other living organism.

posted 03-06-2018 02:15 PM               

The second cover, again with a Finney/ Nickel rubber stamp cachet, has a PAFB launch day cancel of Oct. 13, 1960, for an Atlas IV (Atlas #71D) suborbital flight test carrying three black mice. It was the first Atlas-related biological spaceflight and all three mice (named Sally, Amy, and Moe) were retrieved from the nose cone near Ascension Island. After traveling about 5,000 miles down the Atlantic Missile Range, the mice passengers survived the 650-mile-high flight with a peak speed of 17,500 mph.

So both a Thor and Atlas were early launch vehicles that flew mice into space from the Cape! If I recall, there was a Sarzin cachet cover produced for the same Atlas flight, which I know I have one here somewhere (can anyone show it here)?

posted 03-06-2018 07:22 PM               

Known as the Apollo 17 pocket mouse experiment, it was a biomedical cosmic ray research study involving 4 male mice and 1 female mouse. They had been implanted with radiation monitors under their scalps for the nearly 2-week exposure study. After the flight, 4 of the 5 mice had survived.

I do know of at least two different cachet covers for the lunar mice event-coverage. Here is one.

posted 03-08-2018 01:54 AM               

Rats in space is one of my favorite topics.

As referred above in Oct. 13, 1960 three black mice flown aboard an Atlas IV rocket.

Here is the Sarzin cover quoted by Ken.

posted 03-08-2018 02:02 AM               

First one postmarked PAFB, rest PC.

posted 03-10-2018 02:01 PM               

quote:

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Originally posted by Antoni RIGO:
Rats in space is one of my favorite topics.

---

Christopher Schatte was the Principle Investigator for this live animal research project and was kind enough to handle two covers of mine mailed to him.

As clearly indicated by him, one (above) of the two covers I sent to him was flown with the animals after landing at Dryden/Edwards AFB back to KSC. Also indicated by him was that the two covers were located in the Payload Operations Control Center (POCC) at JSC at the time of the 51B launch.

posted 03-10-2018 02:36 PM               

As the cover indicates, it was originally located inside the POCC at JSC when Challenger and her Spacelab crew were launched. A wonderful "double" event with a "located inside" and "flown" cover event(s)!

posted 03-10-2018 03:08 PM               

You know, Mission 51B was the first U.S. spaceflight fully-dedicated to life sciences research in microgravity and the first time that humans and monkeys had flown together in space.

posted 03-10-2018 03:27 PM               

Unlike all the monkeys that flew on previous US spaceflights, these two STS-51B space monkeys, along with the 24 space rats, were not named and only had serial numbers.

posted 03-12-2018 07:36 PM               

I have no idea why it says that it is related to the Vanguard program. It might just be that this was a very early launch and there was very little information about these launches at the time.

posted 03-12-2018 08:16 PM               

I think the cachet's reference to "First Thor-Vanguard" may refer to the 2nd stage of the Vanguard satellite launch vehicle carrier.