posted 08-14-2022 05:39 AM               

Space Cover 663: SMEAT, Snoopy, and Canned Meat

Fifty years ago, the crew of the Skylab Medical Experiments Altitude Test (SMEAT) was in the midst of their 56-day test of life cooped up in a vacuum chamber outfitted with Skylab equipment and at the reduced atmospheric pressure that would be used on Skylab. Remember the old slam about the Mercury astronauts being "Spam in the can"? Even more so here!

The cover above was postmarked on July 26, 1972, the day that (then) unflown astronauts Bob Crippen, Bill Thornton, and "Bo" Bobko entered the vacuum chamber in Houston to begin their 56 day stay. It was prepared by the Manned Spacecraft Center Stamp Club using the crew's patch that featured Snoopy getting "roped in" to the test. These covers are fairly easy to find and are popular not only for their tie-in with the space program, but also with Snoopy (the dog in the Peanuts comic strip of the era).

SMEAT's primary objective was to evaluate equipment and procedures proposed for use during the Skylab missions, as well as provide a baseline from which to measure the crews who flew on Skylab. One of the cited achievements of the SMEAT test was to troubleshoot and repair the malfunctioning Skylab urine collection system which led to a very successful flight unit. Those poor guys...

Here's another favorite SMEAT cover, this one also postmarked on July 26, 1972 in Houston, and signed by all three crewmen. And if you look at the handwriting that fills in the cachet, it looks a lot like Crippen's handwriting. This cover was addressed to the late Charlie Simpson, who I had met in Houston in the late '80's. Charlie dabbled in space covers, but his forte' was finagling to get covers carried onboard deep-sea submersible dives. Maybe Charlie found a way to finagle Crippen to fill out the cachet(?). We'll probably never know.

Here's a picture of Crippen, Thornton, and Bobko inside their Skylab-bedecked vacuum chamber.

All three of these guys, having paid their dues on SMEAT, went on to some very distinguished careers onboard the Space Shuttle!

And lastly you are probably wondering about the end of the title for this article. While researching this article, I learned that smeat is now a slang term for any kind of canned meat (a merger of Spam and meat). Apropos?

posted 08-14-2022 03:14 PM               

Added below are a few more SMEAT covers (crew signed) along with a signed glossy. Two of the cachet covers are Manned Spaceflight Covers by Jack McMahan, also in the Houston area, near the space center there for the start (July 26) and completion (Sept. 20) of the developmental test series.

The cover depicted by Dennis filled out by head crewman Bob Crippen for deep-sea submersible/space cover collector Charles Simpson, also in the Houston area, was interesting to see. I had known and worked with Simpson on a number of space "carried cover" projects throughout the late 1970's. While there could be a slight possibility that this cover was perhaps with Crippen onboard the SMEAT chamber, it seems unlikely from how the cover was written-up and notated. I do recall, long ago, in seeing a carried SMEAT cover. Anyone have one to share?

While SMEAT was a highly successful test operation with many medical experiment developmental studies conducted, there were problems encountered. As reported by space author David Shayler, one of the problems faced during the Skylab "ground" exercises was with the urine collection system. The system eventually broke down (failed) and leaked that resulted in lost data and a rather messy clean-up period.