posted 10-08-2023 05:12 AM               

Space Cover 722: Skylab 3 at 50

Well, we just passed the 50th anniversary of Skylab 3, the second crew to inhabit Skylab. And since the Space Cover of the Week has yet to do an article on Skylab 3, it's time!

Above is a cover postmarked onboard the USS New Orleans on September 26, 1973, the day after it recovered the Skylab 3 crew from their wildly successful 59-day flight. What's the big deal about the day after postmark? For this mission, and several other late Apollo missions, the ship's post office was closed on the recovery day, and all of the requests for recovery covers were sent to shore post offices to get the prime recovery ship postmark on the day of recovery.

So most of the prime recovery covers out there for Apollo 17, Skylabs 2 through 4, and ASTP, postmarked on their recovery day, weren't actually on the ship! A few crewmembers and guests onboard the ship did get covers postmarked the day after the recovery when the ship's post office was re-opened.

So the cover above was actually on the USS New Orleans on recovery day and was mailed out the day after. The unique cachet has sometimes, and erroneously, been called the Captain's Cover, but it cannot be traced back to the Captain. These cachets were brought onboard the New Orleans by collector Dr. Ben Ramkissoon who had a press pass to cover the recovery. And astute recovery ship expert Ross Smith has even noted that the handwriting on this cover's address looks a lot like Dr. Ben's.

The Skylab 3 crew of Alan Bean, Owen Garriott, and Jack Lousma launched on July 28, 1973. They docked with the Skylab station that day. Building on the repair efforts of the first Skylab crew to make the damaged space station usable, the Skylab 3 crew performed more repairs then went full-tilt into science operations. EVAs were performed on:

• August 6, 1973 when Lousma and Garriott deployed a new sunshade, placed film in the telescope cameras, and troubleshot leaks and short circuits on a 6-1/2 hour EVA.
  
• August 24, 1973 when Lousma and Garriott replaced the Skylab's gyroscopes, changed telescope film, and retrieved a space dust collection experiment on a 4-1/2 hour EVA.
  
• September 22, 1973 when Bean and Garriott collected all the telescope film packages during a 2-1/2 hour EVA in preparation for returning to Earth.

Some drama arose during the mission when two of the four reaction-control-system (RCS) thruster pods on the crew's Apollo command/service module (CSM) developed leaks. The Saturn 1B for the next Skylab mission was rolled out to the pad at KSC on August 14, 1973 in case a rescue mission was needed. However, further degradation of the Skylab 3 RCS system did not occur and (as you see above) the Skylab 3 mission returned to Earth nominally.

Droves of covers exist for the Skylab 3 launch, docking, EVAs, science experiments, rescue mission preps, and recovery. Do you have any favorites? If so, please post them!

posted 10-08-2023 05:38 AM               

Apollo 17 is however within my collecting time range. I had no idea that any ship post offices were closed on "recovery day".

For Apollo 17 recovery day was Tuesday 19th December 1972, and the Primary Recovery Ship was USS Ticonderoga. So for complete avoidance of doubt here, are you saying that USS Ticonderoga Recovery Ship cachet covers with a cancellation dated 19 Dec 1972 were postmarked onshore on that date because the USS Ticonderoga post office was closed on that Tuesday?

posted 10-08-2023 07:38 AM               

Inside the envelope was a content SL-3 page from a checklist of CM-117's recovery operations. So I guess that would indicate that same-day splashdown postal cancels were possible on the recovery vessel itself?

posted 10-08-2023 09:07 AM               

quote:

---

Originally posted by Axman:
Why does the cover have Skylab II on the decal whilst you call them the Skylab 3 crew throughout?

---

When the Skylab space station crews were announced in 1971, the astronauts assigned set about designing their mission insignia, or "patch," as it was usually called. The missions were officially designated as:

1. Skylab 1: for the unmanned launch of the Skylab space station on a giant Saturn V, and,

2. Skylab 2, 3 and 4 for the manned visits, which were lofted to space by Saturn 1B rockets.

That seemed simple enough, but mischief was not long in coming. We began receiving flight procedures documents (checklists and other training materials) labeled SLM-1, SLM-2 and SLM-3 (Skylab manned 1, 2 and 3). Other documents were labeled SL-2, SL-3 and SL-4, conforming to the official mission designations.

It became a confusing mess because we began receiving mail and other documents clearly meant for one of the other crews and the people in the Astronaut Office mailroom became as bewildered, confused and uncertain as the rest of us.

In the meantime we had designed our mission patches incorporating the official numeric designations Skylab 2, 3, and 4. During a visit by the Director of the Skylab Program, Skylab 2 commander Pete Conrad asked him, "Are we 1, 2 and 3 or are we 2, 3 and 4"?

He replied, "you are 1, 2 and 3".

All of us went back to work and designed new patches to incorporate the numerals 1, 2 and 3. Skylab 1 and 2 used Roman numerals and Jerry Carr, Ed Gibson and I used the Arabic numeral 3. The designs were rendered by artists and sent to Headquarters for approval. The whole process took several months, and the artwork didn't arrive in Washington until about six months before the planned launch of the Skylab.

The Associate Administrator for Manned Space Flight took one look at the artwork and disapproved the design because he said the official flight designations, "2, 3 and 4" were to be used.

Thus informed, we dug out our original designs (for 2, 3 and 4) and were in the process of getting the artwork done when informed by Headquarters "not to bother". We could use the designs for 1, 2 and 3. Then we found out why.

The people who had manufactured the Skylab flight clothing (to be worn onboard) had already completed their work several weeks earlier in order to get the clothes packaged and shipped to the Cape to meet their deadline (for stowage onboard Skylab, which was already in pre- launch processing). Furthermore, they had already used the designs submitted earlier for the mission patches. They didn't have time to wait for official approval. The designs using the numeric designation 1, 2 and 3 became approved by default because items with these patches were already stowed in the Skylab lockers at the Cape. Removing them for patch change-out was considered too expensive and disruptive of launch preparations.

So, although officially designated as Skylab 2, 3 and 4, the mission insignias bear the numeric designations as follows: Skylab 2 (Roman numeral I), Skylab 3 (Roman numeral II) and Skylab 4 (Arabic numeral 3).

When traveling in Afghanistan in 1975, I presented some VIPs with our Skylab 4 patch. One lady looked thoroughly confused and asked about the numeral 3 on the Skylab 4 patch. I gave her this long-winded explanation and, by the time I finished, they were roaring with laughter.

This has to be the most exasperating bit of space trivia ever. It's especially confusing to autograph collectors who still scratch their heads trying to sort out their trophies.

posted 10-08-2023 09:48 AM               

All covers and postcards were obtained on the ship from their souvenir shop, PO or specific personnel, which I serviced myself while aboard. The PO was closed on Recovery Day as I recall.

posted 10-08-2023 10:36 AM               

1. The recovery ship was in the middle of the Pacific, with the nearest 'land' being Samoa or the Cook Islands (Apollo 17. I presume Skylab II/3 was in a similar position).

2. The onshore cancellations took place in Hawaii.

3. It is not really feasible that a cancellation device would be on a ship in the middle of the Pacific one day before recovery, flown to Hawaii on the morning of recovery, and flown back to the Primary Recovery Ship for use the next day. (Even the US Navy would not consider that a wise use of resources!).

Which brings us back to Dr. Ben's definitive cancellation of a cover on 25th on board the ship. Logically, if his account is correct (which I am not doubting), either: A) he, or the PC, cancelled it onboard on the date in question despite the PO being closed; or B) it was backdated.

posted 10-08-2023 11:17 AM               

The cancellation of collector covers took place over a multi-day period and not some frantic personnel trying to get it all done in a single day.

Ship's PO were not designed to handle any type of volume like this (e.g., think of the USS Hornet multi-day effort for the Apollo 11 mission) hence why they moved processing to shore to give the logistics teams room to work on receipt of requests, applying the cachet and cancels, processing return mail, etc.

As Axman points out, the logistics to ship postmark device(s) back and forth for a single day would not make any sense (even though we know a LOT of things that don't make sense are done).

posted 10-08-2023 11:23 AM               

For next day (25th), I still can't believe that the onboard USS New Orleans postal station was "completely closed" and that perhaps some connections were possible in getting a very limited number on the 25th.

It may even be practical to think that on the 26th, just maybe, some covers may had been backdated so long as those covers were onboard (of course).

Otherwise, we can't say that the ship cancels are not genuine or perhaps have a private hand stamp cancel device "brought onboard" by someone like Ben, but of course, I am not saying that Ben did anything like this. My cover by Buchanan was addressed to him and his wife as I think most of them were that we know of, therefore, I am sure it was mailed straight from the ship's own post office.

Another thought was the affixed red inked rubber stamp cachet provided by the SL-III Manned Spacecraft Recovery Force. This looks to be the official USN cachet used for the mission (not a fake) and mine was applied on the back-side of the Buchanan cover.

Therefore, was this Pacific Task Force 130 rubber stamp impressions applied to the referred covers on the ship itself, and if so, what day was it on? If on the 25th, that would also imply that the ship's post office had been open in someway to even receive this official Navy cachet.

posted 10-08-2023 06:56 PM               

So for Apollo 16, there are some recovery day postmarked covers that were on the Ticonderoga, most not. Maybe Ross can shed some more light on this.

posted 10-09-2023 05:09 AM               

My previous remarks on the 'facts' were based on the Apollo 17 mission (with which I am familiar) as opposed to looking up any 'facts' surrounding the Skylab II/3 mission (with which I wasn't).

I just assumed, falsely it turns out, that the recovery would be slap bang in the middle of the largest pond on the planet just like all the Apollo moon shots. I was wrong: The crew and command module were recovered by the USS New Orleans, about 360 km (225 mi) off the Californian coast, southwest of San Diego.

This re-raises the spectre of Dr Ross's peripatetic cancel device (but only IF the 'onshore facility' was San Diego (or other Californian Naval base), and not Hawaii).

posted 10-09-2023 09:44 AM               

I had always believed that covers for the Apollo 16 PRS were postmarked in Hawaii. However I have just carefully read the instructions from the Navy to collectors which clearly states that for Atlantic ships 'covers will be forwarded to the recovery ship'!

posted 10-09-2023 10:49 AM               

Likely the TF-140 news release creation was a "copy-paste" from the Apollo 15 news release changing Apollo 15 data to Apollo 16 data.

This was a TF-140 news release and the Atlantic recovery submissions were already processed "on-shore" at Norfolk so there was no change to the TF-140 cover request processing.

posted 10-09-2023 11:59 AM               

There doesn't appear to be any doubt about that. (Although of course there may well have been a change of plan between December 1971 and March 1972.)

posted 10-11-2023 12:11 PM               

The top SL-3 crew emblem cover is nicely autographed by the crew with their positions added. The bottom cover is a Morris Beck USS New Orleans Prime Recovery Ship cover and signed by Rear Admiral Raymond A. Gordon, the head of manned space recovery, Pacific.

The top cover is signed by five Skylab 3 Flight Directors: Charles Lewis, Donald Puddy, Phillip Shaffer, Neil Hutchison and Milton Windler. The bottom cover, a NASA/KSC official cachet for SL-3 splashdown, is signed by Gene Kranz as the Chief Skylab Flight Director.

posted 10-12-2023 05:48 AM               

The crew patch emblem cachet with "Kennedy Space Center, Florida" at bottom was the production of Tom Foley's Cape Kennedy Medals (later Mint) of Cocoa Beach.

posted 10-22-2023 07:00 PM               

quote:

---

Originally posted by micropooz:
These cachets were brought onboard the New Orleans by collector Dr. Ben Ramkissoon...

---