posted 11-12-2023 09:06 AM               

Space Cover 727: Colonel Frank Borman

United States Air Force colonel, aeronautical engineer, test pilot and NASA astronaut Frank Borman.

Frank Borman's first mission to space was on Gemini 7, serving as command pilot along with pilot Jim Lovell. The mission lasted 14 days in space making 206 orbits. Their spacecraft served as a passive target for the first crewed rendezvous in space with the Gemini 6 capsule.

My covers shown here are by a few of my favorite cachetmakers.

Above, December 4, 1965 Cape Canaveral cancel on a Harry Gordon cover. I really enjoy his unique cachets utilizing pasted on photos resembling postage stamps with the perforations.

Borman was commander of the Apollo 8 mission, the first crewed spacecraft to leave low Earth orbit and the first human spaceflight to reach the Moon. This was also the first launch of the powerful Saturn V rocket which would be used to land men on the Moon. The crew of Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, and Bill Anders orbited the Moon ten times without landing, then returned safely to Earth. They were the first crew to experience and photograph the far side of the Moon and witness an Earthrise.

My father's iconic oil painting depicts the awesome power of the Saturn V engines as the 7.6 million pounds of thrust launching Apollo 8 into space.

"Paul Calle's painting is one of the finest of America's Apollo Program. Having been one of the Apollo 8 crew who made the first manned flight on the mighty Saturn V rocket, I was not able to view the launch from the ground. But, Paul captured exactly what I felt riding on top of that beast!

"When I was appointed U.S. Ambassador to Norway, the State Department allowed my wife, Valerie, and me to select art for the residence. My first choice was ... 'Power to Go.' It was a real hit."

- Bill Anders, Apollo 8 Lunar Module Pilot

Dec. 21, 1968 Cape Canaveral cancel on a Robert Rank Lunar Voyage Cachets cover.

On January 10, 1969 the Apollo astronauts were honored with a ticker tape parade in New York City honoring the latest heroes of space!

January 10, 1969 New York, NY cancel on Clyde Sarzin cover.

On February 4, 1969 Borman and the crew of Apollo were received by Queen Elizabeth at Buckingham Palace as shown in this Sarzin cover.

In 2018 at the Columbian Ball celebration at Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the Apollo 8 mission, it was my privilege to be asked by the crew of Apollo 8 and the museum to unveil my latest oil painting, "Earthrise Apollo 8" during an exclusive pre-cocktail party celebration. On display that evening were five other paintings of mine in my History of Space series of Robert Rauschenberg inspired mixed media paintings.

A few months before the event I had emailed Bill Anders who was a friend of my father's going back to the early Apollo days, about the oil painting I was working on and the other paintings I had in mind celebrating Apollo 8's anniversary. At his suggestion the idea of displaying my artwork at the gala and unveiling the Earthrise painting came about.

Soon I incredulously found myself included in a series of emails between Anders, Lovell and Borman! This was a rare glimpse into their friendship and I thoroughly enjoyed being a part of it, especially the friendly banter when it came around to their debating who took the iconic Earthrise photographs!

Perhaps the most memorable part of the evening was having the crew sign my original oil painting.

posted 11-12-2023 05:43 PM               

I can't keep up with you on art, but wanted to show one piece of Gemini 7 art that really inspired this (then) 9-year-old kid, and I still have it today! The cover of the December 24, 1965 Time Magazine shows how incredibly complicated the Gemini 7/6 rendezvous was:

posted 11-13-2023 05:05 PM               

The GT-7 cover is an "Orbit" cover, with a well-applied Cape Canaveral hand stamp cancel for launch and well-applied autographs by Borman and Jim Lovell, with flight inscriptions.

The Apollo 8 Houston crew signed launch cover is a production of the Space City Cover Society, with an interesting descriptive and pictorial rubber stamp cachet applied. It's nicely signed by Borman, Lovell and Bill Anders.

posted 11-13-2023 11:21 PM               

Related to Apollo 8, recently acquired these oversized Christmas card envelopes with a cachet of the crew, postmarked throughout the mission at various locations around the cape. Inlcuded were a few cards with fun artwork by Don Mackey.

posted 11-25-2023 10:43 PM               

In preparation for the 50th anniversary celebration of Apollo 8 in Chicago it had to be exciting for Chris' participation and in getting his Apollo 8 earthrise painting signed by the crew along with their personal email exchanges.

Here are about two dozen more signed Borman covers, photos, cards, etc. from my own personal collection. It was good seeing Bob's crew sgned GT-7 and Apollo 8 covers by Orbit and Space City Cover Society. I've got a few favorite GT-7 and Apollo 8 crew signed covers, which I believe, were already used on a prior but different cS-posting topic. So there are no crew signed covers in the two display panels below, but only single Borman autographs. And it was good seeing Jeff's posting of the talented artwork of Don Mackey's Christmas card envelopes that he did as a series during the early Apollo program. That's a whole new collecting field in itself.

The ambitious and hard-working Group 2 astronaut retired from NASA and the Air Force in 1970 to join Eastern Air Lines as a senior vice president and CEO in 1975 and a year later as Chairman of the Board for the airline company based in Miami, Florida. After leaving Eastern Air Lines in 1986, Borman moved to Las Cruces, New Mexico, when he ran a Ford car dealership with his son, Fred, and in 1998 he brought a cattle ranch in Montana.

Borman, a Congressional Space Medal of Honor recipient (I was there at the ceremony), was also referred to by some as "NASA's most unusual astronaut." Why "Unusual" you may ask?

At 95, Borman was the oldest living astronaut and space traveller, a distinction that now has passed to his fellow Apollo 8 crewmate Jim Lovell, who is also 95. The Apollo 8 mission commander said he was never interested in the grandeur of space exploration. "I wanted to participate in this American adventure of beating the Soviets to the moon. But that's the only thing that motivated me — beat the damn Russians," he said on a national radio station broadcast in 2018. Asked about walking on the moon, the veteran astronaut leader remarked that he would not accept the risk involved of a manned lunar landing to pick up rocks. "It doesn't really mean that much to me."

But the veteran Gemini and Apollo astronaut pioneer did accept a high risk of commanding the first human space voyage to orbit another world, and as they say, the rest is history.

posted 11-26-2023 11:59 AM               

These two are Prime Recovery Ship covers for Borman's two spaceflights: Gemini-Titan 7 (USS Wasp) and Apollo 8 (USS Yorktown) and very well-signed by him with flight inscriptions added.

These two covers were signed by him back in the 1970's/'80's-era when he typically applied his autograph more carefully. Generally he was very accommodating about autographs and these two covers are good examples of that.