posted 03-09-2019 10:52 PM               

Space Cover #505: Personal space dates

We all collect space covers for various reasons and we all have favorites in our collections. Sometimes space events occur on appropriate dates that happen to coincide with special dates in our personal life. I have pictured here three covers that happen to be postmarked on my birthday.

The first cover is for the launch of Orbiting Solar Observatory-C, renamed OSO-3 once in orbit. It has the Carl Swanson designed Space Craft Covers cachet and postmarked in Cape Canaveral on the launch date of March 8, 1967. This just so happens to be the day I was born, 52 years ago this week! I have always loved the fact that a satellite was launched on the day I was born and that I have covers postmarked at both Cape Canaveral and Patrick AFB on that date. Very appropriate for a Space Cadet like me. I don't know if many other people have covers postmarked on the day they were born.

The second cover is for the launch of UK-X4 and the British Miranda probe. It has the Space Voyage cachet and postmarked at Vandenberg AFB. It was launched and postmarked on my 7th birthday.

The third cover is for the launch of Space Shuttle Discovery and STS-102 to the International Space Station. It has a printed mission emblem cachet and is postmarked at Kennedy Space Center. This was my 34th birthday and we were on the NASA Causeway just about 7 miles away from Launch Complex 39A to see the launch. It was a beautiful sunrise launch! I later wrote to Commander Jim Wetherbee and asked him to sign the cover, which he did. I told him the launch occurred on my birthday and that I had 2 of the biggest birthday candles lit for my birthday!

Do any space covers in your collection coincide with important personal dates?

posted 03-10-2019 12:20 PM               

Below a Hudson cover postmarked on Dec 15, 1970 for the launch of 5 Nike-Apache rockets.

This date matches with my birthday.

posted 03-10-2019 07:39 PM               

Well I was born before Sputnik 1 cranked up the space race, so there wasn’t much, if anything, launched on my day of birth. But while in elementary school, Project Gemini gave me a couple of neat birthday presents.

On June 3, 1965, Gemini 4 was launched, Ed White did his historic EVA, and the MCC in Houston began controlling its first flight (Houston postmarked June 3, 1965 cover above).

A year later, the twice scrubbed Gemini 9 finally launched on June 3, 1966 (cover above postmarked on the first scrub date and the launch date).

posted 05-06-2019 05:03 AM               

Moreover, my mother was born on 10/8/1924. Thus she celebrated her 15th birthday on the day of Cuban October 8th, 1939 trial flight.

posted 05-09-2019 06:36 PM               

Today, May 9 is my dad's birthday. It is also the date of the Mercury Beach Abort test from Wallops Island, though Dad was born a number of years before the Beach Abort. My mom's birthday is April 8 which is the date of the Gemini 1 launch.