posted May 14, 2002 10:51 AM               

Read the article here: http://collectspace.com/resources/autographs_rarestofthemall.html

And then provide your feedback below...

posted May 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.

Let me ammend my statement... All the X-15 pilots were not certified as astros. Only the ones that went over 50 miles high. (Now I understand the edge of space is considered 62 miles, which sounds a lot like 100 Km. Sounds like a metric adjustment to the rules.)

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Warm Regards

Douglas Henry

Enjoy yourself and have fun.... it is only a hobby!

posted May 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).

If we add the X-15 guys, Walker is another
#1 or Adams.

Florian

posted May 14, 2002 02:50 PM               

I am not aware of the signing habits of Walker and Adams. But,he was killed on his Astro qualifying flight. I think that was his 7th flight in the X-15.

posted May 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. Everytime we talk I learn something.

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

posted May 14, 2002 11:37 PM               

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[This message has been edited by BigWaveDave (edited May 14, 2002).]

posted May 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 astros didn't reach space. So I for one would include the Adams and Walkers as they did reach space.

Just a thought.

I look forward to future articles Bob as yours are always well thought out.

posted May 16, 2002 11:26 AM               

I've always wondered what the rarest
astronaut & cosmonaut autographs were (usually the ones I'm trying to find for my collection <G> )& 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 & 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.

Thanks again and we certainly welcome comments & discussions on what is just one
man's opinion of who the rarest of all
the space voyagers' autographs are.

Bob McLeod

posted May 16, 2002 01:31 PM               

That was a great article. I can't imagine all the work you put into it. It was very interesting and I am sure everyone got a kick out of it. Again, great job!

posted May 18, 2002 01:36 PM               

Great article, but I have to agree with several other replies as well concerning the X-15 pilots. Walker and Adams should be in there somewhere.

posted May 18, 2002 02:01 PM              

Nice work Bob! Thanks for all the hard work.

I agree with many of the earlier comments about the article(including your response).... X-15 should have been included.

Also, I noticed that of the 15 listed , 11 were astronauts and 4 cosmonauts. Of the 11 astronauts, 8 were unflown and 3 were STS-51L astronauts. The 4 cosmonauts were all flown.

If you were to use the same standard toward the cosmonauts, you probably would be adding several of the unflown Group 1 (1960) cosmonauts to the list. Of the original 20 cosmonauts only 12 made spaceflights. For example, I have never seen a Nelyubov autograph offerred for sale.

Additionally, Liem, backup cosmonaut for Soyuz 37 (Intercosmo Vietnamese flight)is pretty tough to find.

Again, good job Bob!

Regards to All-

posted May 19, 2002 04:37 PM               

But if I included the MOL astronauts (several rare) & 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 & MOL, X-15 &
X-20 astronauts! Plus the eight unflown
early Cosmonauts also were mentioned, & are
quite worthy, too. Including all of these worthy pioneer astronauts/cosmonauts would
have caused the list to have gotten out of hand & 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;
& MOL astros Robert Lawrence & James Taylor
(died in 1970). Jack McKay is rare, as is
still-living Al Crews (X-20 & MOL), a notorious non-signer.

Maybe I drew the line slightly in the wrong place, but I wanted it to favor those who
were chosen & trained for orbital flight (but which certainly includes the MOL astronauts). In retrospect, I probably should have included the X-15 pilots & maybe the MOL & X-20 pilots, but the list would
have been quite different & would have overly favored the US space program too much.

posted June 03, 2002 03:28 PM               

I'm glad you found my "Rarest" article interesting & I guess I should be flattered that your very 1st collectSPACE posting was about my article.

You stated that I was inconsistant in my definition of "astronaut" & "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 & 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, & 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).

We've asked others to list their rarest 15; this would be a good opportunity for you, Gkitman, to list yours.

posted August 11, 2002 05:20 PM               

From The Last Frontier.......

posted August 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, & Sunita Williams, GROUP 18: Dominic
"Tony" Antonelli, Steve Bowen & 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 thru the mail & he stated that he never has. And some of the others, such as Sunita Williams, possibly
haven't either.

But astronauts change their signing policies
and it works both ways - some who haven't signed, start, and some that signed well, stop. So it is certainly a good idea to try for the "non-signers," as they may decide to
start signing - maybe after they are assigned
to a flight.

Bob McLeod

posted August 11, 2002 08:11 PM               

From The Last Frontier.........

posted August 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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Are you sure about this, Bob? I see Gus Loria scheduled for an upcoming shuttle mission.

posted August 13, 2002 03:11 AM               

quote:

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Originally posted by Robert Pearlman:
Jurgen, Loria removed himself from STS-113 last week -- "personal and professional reasons." He will reportedly attend Harvard this fall and then return to NASA but not necessarily as an astronaut. Paul Lockhart has taken his place as STS-113 pilot.

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Thanks for the background, Robert.

posted April 01, 2003 06:07 AM               

quote:

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Originally posted by Bob M:
Leland Melvin,

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.

Bob McLeod

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