Ken Havekotte
Member Posts: 3615
From: Merritt Island, Florida, Brevard
Registered: Mar 2001
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posted 05-13-2023 02:02 PM
   
This Sunday, May 14, 2023, marks the 50th launch anniversary of America's first space station, known as the Skylab orbital workshop, which had been launched into Earth orbit without an astronaut crew. The nearly 100-foot-long station weighed 75 tons when it flew becoming the first crewed research laboratory in space nearly two weeks later. The two-deck Skylab orbital complex was actually a leftover modified third stage (S-IVB) of an Apollo/Saturn V moon rocket. Referred to as Skylab 1 (SL-1), it was the last Apollo/Saturn V rocket to fly. Of the two cover display panel presentations, the first at top, exhibits pre-Skylab 1 space cover events from February 1971 that ends in April 1973. Note that I am only showing covers related to SL-1 and not yet any crew training and their pre-launch event covers. The three Skylab crew cover events, mainly from launch to splashdown, will be a separate posting on May 25 and later in September and November. There may even be another cover topic, SMEAT, coming up along with Skylab's last days in orbit and in breaking up when returning to Earth after six years in space. It would appear that there are very few non-crew related pre-Skylab 1 launch covers out there, however, I have not yet checked over all of my own Skylab cover boxes. Surely Robert Rank of Space Voyage did produce many other Skylab cover issues from 1970 until May 1973. Any before Feb. 1971?  The second panel display of covers are only of those with a May 14 cancel of any sort focusing on SL-1's launch and flight into orbit. All of those covers depicted here in this section were autographed by various Skylab program officials and participates. There are still many more than can be depicted here, most of which, I had collected and worked on throughout my high school years as an avid Skylab program enthusiast and collector. So lets see more SL-1 covers! |
Bob M
Member Posts: 1851
From: Atlanta-area, GA USA
Registered: Aug 2000
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posted 05-19-2023 01:43 PM
Ken, very impressive display of Saturn V pre-launch covers and launch covers of the Skylab-1 Orbital Workshop. Here are two more covers to add to yours. The top cover is a Skylab-1 NASA/KSC VIP card and the bottom cover a Skylab-1 official NASA/KSC cachet launch cover. Both have also been canceled at KSC for the demise and re-entry of the Skylab Orbital Workshop on July 11, 1979 after the OWS had been in orbit for over six years. It was a sad end to such an exciting and productive time in US space flight history.  |
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