posted 05-14-2002 10:51 AM               

Read the article here: The rarest of them all

And then provide your feedback below...

posted 05-14-2002 12:11 PM               

My two bits?

Include the X-15 pilots. They did go into space. I understand from my reading that they were even weightless during a portion of their flight.

posted 05-14-2002 02:02 PM               

Definetely agree with Dobrowolsky and Patsaev though I think there are some real autographs in existence - I seem to remember Superior once at least had a kind of logbook signed by Patsaev.

I personally would put Steve Thorne as number 1, too. He's by far rarer than any of the other before him or how many have you seen in the past 10 years?

Have even seen more Dobrowolsky's and Patsaev's (taking they are real) and Levchenko (there is usually at least 1-2 flown covers in each Superior sale).

posted 05-14-2002 03:12 PM               

The only omission that I thought of right away was X-15 pilot Mike Adams. He continues to evade many collections. I have had only two in all my years of collecting.

posted 05-14-2002 07:56 PM               

I am honored to be able to call Bob McLeod a friend! He is an outstanding person. And has been very kind to me and my family!

Bob is a long time collector and a wealth of knowledge on all aspects of the space program as well as collecting. Every time we talk I learn something.

Seeing these examples are incredible. I'm sure I will never obtain most of them.

posted 05-14-2002 11:37 PM               

Check it out on the ASE website, only about 40 of each left.

posted 05-16-2002 12:45 AM               

You noted that the X-15 pilots weren't listed because they only scraped the edge of space. If this is what kept them off the list then wouldn't Chaffee, Freeman, Givens, etc. also be shunned because they didn't get into space at all? In fact much of your list including the various 51L astronauts didn't reach space. So I for one would include the Adams and Walkers as they did reach space.

posted 05-16-2002 11:26 AM               

I've always wondered what the rarest astronaut and cosmonaut autographs were (usually the ones I'm trying to find for my collection) and after putting together a list I decided an article about them for collectSPACE would be appropriate and interesting.

Most choices were no-brainers, such as the two Soyuz 11 rookies and the early deceased NASA astronauts, such as Roger Chaffee. The hard part was putting them in order of rarity.

Exhibiting only certain authentic examples of their autographs was a major concern & with help from several collectors, I feel we achieved that goal.

Excluding the several X-15 pilots who achieved astronaut wings because of their extreme high altitude flights was maybe not a good decision, but I wanted the list to include only those who underwent official spaceflight training, for orbital missions. But the X-15 pilots probably did receive what could be called spaceflight training, although I feel that they were more pilots than spacemen. I believe that most of their flights were more concerned with speed than achieving extreme altitude.

posted 05-19-2002 04:37 PM               

But if I included the MOL astronauts (several rare) and the X-20 Dyna-Soar astronauts (several rare), plus 2-3 rare X-15 pilots, then the top 15 would have been mostly unflown early astronauts and MOL, X-15 and X-20 astronauts! Plus the eight unflown early cosmonauts also were mentioned, and are quite worthy, too. Including all of these worthy pioneer astronauts/cosmonauts would have caused the list to have gotten out of hand and would have had to include maybe 20-30 names to be fair.

Probably about as rare or rarer than Levchenko (#3), for example, are X-20 Dyna-Soar pilot Russell Rogers (died in '67); X-15 pilot Mike Adams; and MOL astros Robert Lawrence & James Taylor (died in 1970). Jack McKay is rare, as is still-living Al Crews (X-20 and MOL), a notorious non-signer.

posted 06-03-2002 03:28 PM               

You stated that I was inconsistant in my definition of "astronaut" and "spaceflight training" - perhaps I was. You also state, some in my rarest 15 listing never flew, or made it to orbit, or even trained for a spaceflight - can't deny all that! But their qualifications and experience had nothing to do with those selected for the rarest listing, as pointed out in my article.

Those considered for the rarest 15 autographs had only to undergo official spaceflight training (officially selected to undergo spaceflight training), regardless of whether or not they ever flew in space (11 did not), made it to orbit, or were selected for an actual crew.

With there being at least 900 individuals who have been selected for spaceflight training, and with many of the early cosmonauts' autographs unknown or unverifiable, a line had to be drawn somewhere. It was drawn to include all NASA Astronauts thru Group 15 and all flown cosmonauts (the two unflown 51-L non-NASA Astronauts were also included). I decided to exclude X-15 pilots because they were never selected or trained for orbital spaceflight - a qualification that all of my rarest 15 met (Granted, all 12 X-15 pilots could fly circles around many of my rarest 15).

posted 08-11-2002 07:56 PM               

As far as current NASA Astronaut non-signers, from my experiences, there are a good many - too many. But we decided not to include any of the NASA Astronauts from the last three NASA Astronaut Groups or Classes in the "Rarest of Them All" listing. But if we had, the following would certainly have been considered. GROUP 16: Yvonne Cagle, Edward Fincke and C.J. "Gus" Loria (more difficult now since he's left NASA), GROUP 17: Gregory Chamitoff, Patricia Hilliard-Robertson's signed portraits are not common, Gregory C. Johnson, Leland Melvin, Alan Poindexter, Steve Swanson, and Sunita Williams, Group 18: Dominic "Tony" Antonelli, Steve Bowen and Douglas Hurley.

Of course, some collectors have had thru the mail successes with some of those above, but generally, the astronauts listed above are not cooperative about responding to requests for their autographs thru the mail. For example, someone asked Ed Fincke in person if he signs through the mail and he stated that he never has. And some of the others, such as Sunita Williams, possibly haven't either.

posted 08-12-2002 09:37 AM               

quote:

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Originally posted by Bob M:
C.J. "Gus" Loria (more difficult now since he's left NASA)

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