posted 12-23-2023 02:39 AM               

Space Cover 733: Mismatched image and space event

The upcoming launch of an X-37B atop of a Falcon Heavy rocket made me go search through my X-37B covers and I realised that all covers I have were postmarked for launch or landing space event.

This made me wonder if there were covers postmarked before first X-37B launch on April 20, 2010 and... bingo, I found the cover shown here.

The space cover is postmarked Aug 8, 2005 from Korolev mission control for undocking STS-114 Dicovery from ISS. Image used as cachet is an artist conception made in 1999 which can be seen searching X-37B on Wikipedia.

And what is the link between X-37B image and date/place of postmark? None but attract the interest of collectors in buying this cover.

Sometimes I hate covers like this. Image, rubber stamp or cachet should reinforce, help or complement the space event of date and place’s postmark. Obviously, sometimes errors can be made because image is based on imagination of artist and not in a real photo of spacecraft (for secrecy reasons), or a generic cachet applied in multiple times with poor relation, but when error tends to be more attractive the cover for philatelic market, then it is better avoid it, as if the cover never would be existed.

Please, if you have other space covers with mismatched images in front of date/place postmark for this reason, feel free to post here and comment at your best knowledge.

posted 12-26-2023 11:17 AM               

So, instead I've gone for a theme: Manned Apollo missions — and I've narrowed that theme down into the further categories of the ironic, the confusing, and the amusing.

The Ironic.

Here we have not so much a mismatched image and event, so much as a mismatched stamp and location.

This is a postcard from my collection, of initial contact with Apollo 7 from the NASA tracking station on Guam. Like most of the rest of the Apollo series Guam contact covers, this is signed by the Station Director Charles Force. I find it ironic however, that the stamp used is the US 6c "Register & Vote." It's ironic because Guam is part of the USA, but its citizens cannot participate in US elections! I think this is the most inappropriate stamp I've ever seen on any cover I own!!!

The Confusing.

The second and third covers are two Beck US Navy rubber stamp recovery cachets for Apollos 13 and 14. Every time my album pages fall on these pages I think "Why?" Don't get me wrong, I admire Morris Beck and his covers, but, of all the imagery available to his imagination, why did he use the only parts of the moon landing spacecraft that were never ever going to be recovered for his recovery covers?!?

The Amusing.

I love this one. The first time I saw it I had to have it.

Here we have a mid-mission cover for the Apollo 15 moonshot.

It has a Cape Canaveral 1st August 1971 boxed slogan cancellation... "Anniversary of Man's First Walk on the Moon," on a cover entirely dedicated to man not walking on the moon.

posted 12-27-2023 07:14 PM               

The top left cover features a bright colorful Philgraf (artwork by Tenzi) cachet of the Skylab Orbital Workshop Station in orbit with a docked Skylab manned Apollo command/service module attached. The postmark cancel and postage stamp used on it is for the joint American and Soviet Union crewed space rendezvous and docking spaceflight in July 1975. That's two completely different spaceflight missions not related at all.

The Skylab first day cover below at left has a partially correct cachet included, however, towards the bottom of the green-colored Artmaster cachet features a launch of a two-man Titan II rocket with a Gemini spacecraft atop from Launch Pad 19 at Cape Canaveral. There was no direct relationship whatsoever with the manned Gemini program from 1965-66 to Skylab in 1973-74.

The other two covers are Robert Rank Space Voyage cover issues for the passing of famed rocket and space pioneer Dr. Wernher von Braun on June 16, 1977. While Rank was well-known for his accurate and detailed cachet productions for decades, for some reason, he fell short on this von Braun twin cover issue.

Between the two covers there are several (6 total that I can detect) cachet text and picture errors. For starters, the correct spelling is "von Braun" and not "Von Braun." Secondly, von Braun didn't "head NASA during the first moon landing," but directed one of many NASA field spaceflight centers which was the Marshall Spaceflight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. Third: There is a picture illustration of von Braun assisting rocket enthusiast Rudolf Nebel "carrying V-2s at Peenemunde, Germany in early 1940's." They were certainly not carrying nor handling real 47-foot long V-2 rockets as the cachet depicts, but rather a couple of early liquid-propellant rocket models (not the Mirak family of rockets as some captions referred to). And it wasn't at Peenemunde in the early 1940's, but at the German airfield Reinickendorf (also Berlin rocket site) in 1930 that had been used for testing small liquid fueled rocket motor experiments.

Another discrepancy is in the text at bottom right of the White Sands Missile Range cancellation cover that reads, "Von Braun directed the launching of 1000s of V2s at White Sands, N.M., during the late 1940's." It's a huge error in that there were only 65 German/US V-2 rockets test fired from White Sands on U.S. soil during 1946-51.

posted 12-28-2023 07:36 AM               

I even missed the mistake of a "German V-2 rocket on WAC Corporal stage" as Juergen pointed out. But on another note, I didn't too much fault in Rank's mentioning of von Braun surrendering his team to the Americans along with many left-over V-2 rockets and components. The team had indicated to the U.S. Army that they had hidden a lot V-2's for future use if coming over to the U.S. to pursue their rocketry work. So the word "surrender" doesn't really bother me that much.

Perhaps I can include a few others not previously mentioned as there are many. Perhaps the error of Artcraft's first day cover issue, at first, depicting a Mercury Redstone rocket for Glenn's first orbital flight in 1962 is a more common mistake made by the popular first day cover producer.

posted 01-16-2024 05:35 PM               

This cover was postmarked at Cape Canaveral on April 13, 1969 and the Orbit Cachet shows an Atlas-Agena launch vehicle, a 22,300 mile high orbit around the earth, a guy in a spacesuit, and words about the Manned Orbiting Lab (MOL). Neither an Atlas-Agena nor a 22,300 mile high orbit around the earth have anything to do with MOL. There are a lot of moving parts to this story:

The TRW Space Log shows a classified Atlas-Agena launch from Cape Canaveral on April 13, 1969, the date on the cover. Its orbit elements are not reported, likely classified. So far, so good.

The only launch for MOL was the November 3, 1966 test flight mentioned in SCOTW 731. But the cover above has words about MOL and a picture of a guy in a spacesuit. This is where the story gets crazier…

The TRW Space Log also shows the launch of NIMBUS 3, a weather satellite from Vandenberg AFB on April 14, 1969 (the day after the postmark above) on a Thor-Agena launch vehicle. It went into a polar orbit 1070x1130 miles high (not the 22,300 mile geosynchronous orbit shown on the cover). One of the tasks of NIMBUS 3 was to track an elk named Monique. The elk had an electronic device attached to it and the experiment was named Project MOnique the Elk, or MOE. So the cachet designer must have gotten MOE mixed up with MOL which really confused the cover! Clear as mud? Agreed!

And by-the-way, if you are curious about Monique, NIMBUS 3 tracked her on February 19, 1970 (covers are known). Unfortunately she died, but the backup elk (sounds like something out of "Fargo," eh?) Monique 2 was tracked on April 2, 1970 (covers exist).