posted 11-17-2024 09:05 AM               

Space Cover 780: Gumdrop and Spider

This Apollo 9 official NASA Kennedy Space Center cacheted launch cover is autographed by the crew of Jim McDivitt, commander; Rusty Schweickart, lunar module pilot; and Dave Scott, command module pilot. This is one of 15,870 covers with the Apollo 9 NASA KSC rubber stamp cachet applied.

Apollo 9 was the first manned flight of the combined Command and Service Module (CSM) and the Lunar Module (LM) in space. The CSM's call sign was Gumdrop and the LM's was Spider — both owing to their appearances.

Launched on a Saturn V rocket into low Earth orbit, Spider (crewed by McDivitt and Schweickart), then separated from Gumdrop (crewed by Scott) and were separated at one point by over 100 miles. This was the first time that astronauts were aboard a spacecraft incapable of returning to Earth. They successfully carried out important tests of the LM in space, including rendezvous maneuvers and LM engine firings. After more than six hours of separation and flying alone, Spider returned to the CSM, docked, and after ten days in space, Gumdrop, leaving Spider's ascent and descent stages in earth orbit, safely returned to Earth.

Apollo 9, along with Apollo 7 and 8 before, and Apollo 10 after, were the four important Apollo missions that paved the way for Apollo 11's successful moon landing.

This properly used Apollo 9 VIP card, along with the Beck printed USS Guadalcanal Prime Recovery Ship cover (One of 523 serviced on board the Guadalcanal), are two very good examples of astrophilatelic material originating from the Apollo 9 space flight.

posted 11-18-2024 11:14 AM               

The top cover is an Apollo 9 crew signed crew patch/mission emblem printed cachet launch cover with a Cape Canaveral cancel, with the other cover being another USS Guadalcanal Prime Recovery Ship cover, crew signed, with a rubber stamp recovery fleet cachet.

Apollo 9 was a very important and interesting space flight, especially with LM Spider manned and in free flight up to 100 miles away from the crew's ride home.

posted 11-26-2024 04:36 PM               

Two of the covers were pre-launch signed at KSC astronaut crew quarters (a NASA Exchange emblem and a Heritage Crafts printed cachet design). The other cachet covers are by NASA as an ONC, a Whitney rubber stamp, and an Ed Hacker / Centennial issue for March 7 in which this particular cachet is to my liking. The text headline of "Apollo 9 - LEM 2" is in error (technically speaking) as lunar module "Spider" was LM-3.

posted 11-26-2024 05:32 PM               

I can't add much cover-wise to the above except for my one fave that I wrote up five years ago.

And who could forget the classic Apollo 9 EVA photo of Dave Scott, taken by Rusty Schweickart from the "front porch" of the LM? It still gives me goosebumps...