posted 11-19-2023 08:30 AM               

Space Cover 728: Launch Day Excitement KSC VIP Cards

Who is a VIP? The card above was mailed at Kennedy Space Center, with a machine cancel of July 16th, 1969, for the historic launch of the first manned lunar landing mission, Apollo 11. These cards were available to those attending the launch with access to viewing stands, and are typically hand-addressed then postmarked on launch day.

In my pursuit to find these cards for each Apollo mission, I narrowed in on purchasing those specifically with personal notes written on the back. It has been my goal to find at least one card from each mission that was mailed in this way, a glimpse into perspectives from those lesser-known VIPs. With the recent closing of the KSC post office and the completion of my personal goal to collect these cards, I felt this would be a welcome topic for this week.

A prior Space Cover of the Week (137) discussed autographs on these cards, so my focus for this week is a look at 1) hand-written notes shared from the Apollo mission launch days and 2) some more background information on the cancellations.

What I find special is that the notes make them one of a kind and for the most part non-philatelic items, mailed from non-collectors to friends and family. They often turn up tattered and worn in a postcard box, or in the bottom of a box with other miscellaneous documents.

The card above is one of a pair I found together mailed from John R. H. Blum to his wife Susanne and one of his six children, daughter Jane. An obituary for Susanne, who passed away less than one year after the launch, lets us know that John was a lawyer and president of the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences.

The card to his wife reads:

It's 8:05 AM about T minus one twenty seven and counting for the Apollo Eleven. We had a really fascinating trip down with the Eugene Cernans (Apollo 10) and Ed McMahon of the Johnny Carson show! I have had about ten minutes of sleep having gotten up early to get breakfast + catch the bus out here, but am really caught up in the spirit of the whole thing!

This card is a perfect example of how notes on these cards provided me with information I didn't already know, specifically that Johnny Carson and Ed McMahon were there. Well, as a matter of fact it was very easy to locate a photo of them in the crowd that day, once I knew to look for it.

For further reading I've included scans of other cards in my collection, I hope you enjoy looking through them and I'd love to see any you have to post. Do you have any personal stories to share from an Apollo launch day?

Now a note about the cancellations, the following images are taken from Ralph Yorio's 1971 publication entitled Kennedy Space Center Philatelic History which I have scanned into a PDF for collector reference.

From Apollo 7 through Apollo 11, the cards mailed on launch day from KSC have a "closed globe" pictorial machine cancel. The NASA logo is filled in as shown below.

Beginning with Apollo 12, a similar yet slightly different machine cancel was also available from the Visitor Information Center (VIC). This "open globe" cancel has a larger NASA logo without a filled in background as shown below. Notice that the font and spacing inside the VIC machine cancel circle also differ from that used at the KSC post office. Cards with either the open or closed globe cancels can be located from each mission starting with Apollo 12.

posted 11-19-2023 09:36 AM               

However before I go, I've always believed this to be true:

• NASA dark globe cancel - VIP centre or post office
  
• NASA white globe cancel - Visitor Information Centre. The VIP/Post Office was in a restricted area, whereas the VIC was in an unrestricted area.

posted 11-19-2023 01:24 PM               

The closed NASA logo-globe cancels were only processed by the restricted KSC Headquarters Bldg. postal station on base. The open logo-globe cancels were done by a set-up Orlando/ KSC postal unit at KSC's Visitor Information Center just outside the center's west-side main roadway security station at Gate #2 to help accommodate the general public's launch cover and postcard mail from the tourist complex itself.

From Apollo 12 onwards, most VIP card mail from the viewing site(s) at Kennedy were trucked over to the VIC for cancel processing while some other mail from those same viewing site(s) were diverted or made their way over to the main KSC HQS post office itself and by those with badge access. For Apollo 17's night-time launch, I was at the main VIP viewing site and addressed two VIP cards to myself along with three other different addresses. Of those five, all received the closed globe cancel type (dark background inside the NASA logo and not the open slogan).

But not all official VIP cards were processed using KSC. Some that I have for launch day were posted at Cape Canaveral, Titusville, and Satellite Beach on the same day as their launch. The cards used were official government issued, but managed to find their way into other Florida Space Coast postal locations for cancels, and not all for launch day only, but also moonlanding and splasdown days.

posted 11-20-2023 08:58 AM               

I too have an Apollo 8 VIP postcard which shows the same characteristics. Strangely though I also have a non-VIP launch day card posted within the restricted area which shows a very decent strike of the closed/dark cancellation!

posted 11-20-2023 03:54 PM               

The reverse reads:

Nov 14, 1969.
Dear Mom and Art
Greetings
Came here with President Nixon on Airforce (sic) One.
Unfortunately it rained hard
but enjoyed the launch.
Herb

So this guy accompanied Nixon to the Apollo 12 launch, sat through the rainstorm (remember how Apollo 12 got struck by lightning right after launch?), and evidently had Borman autograph it (Borman was serving as NASA's liaison to the White House at the time).

posted 11-30-2023 07:22 AM               

As part of his dissertation he supplied a listing of over a thousand occupations (and I can't recall where his source material originated, only that it was statistically significant) and then ranked them according to readability. I can't recall much of the resulting list, but I certainly remember the top three and the bottom one.

The bottom (i.e. the most easily readable) was Professional Football [Soccer] Referees. The top (i.e. worst) was Surgeons, very very closely followed by GP doctors, and then Naval Officers.

As occupations grouped overall into professions there were three outstandingly bad handwriting groups - Medics, Military and Engineers.

posted 11-30-2023 08:28 AM               

quote:

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Originally posted by Ken Havekotte:
That should be all of them.

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posted 12-01-2023 02:46 PM               

quote:

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Originally posted by kosmo:
Are any of these KSC VIP postcards harder to find than others?

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posted 12-02-2023 04:55 AM               

I finally acquired the full set in the following order - therefore in descending order of rarity with the most common first (and time period prior to find):

• Apollo 17 and 16 (days)
  
• Apollo 11 and 15 (a couple of weeks)
  
• Apollo 13 and 14 (half a year)
  
• Apollo 10 (about 8 months)
  
• Apollo 9 (one and a half years)
  
• Apollo 12 (21 months)*
  
• Apollo 7 and 8 (two years)

posted 12-02-2023 11:35 AM               

quote:

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Originally posted by randyc:
NASA also had VIP cards available for the STS-95 launch.

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