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[b]Space Cover 750: Bumper 8: The Launch That Started It All[/b] We constantly hear news from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. Rocket launches tend to get the biggest headlines and the most coverage for good reason... launches are cool! Very rarely does any of the news from the CCSFS concern the ground. However, there is currently an archaeological dig being conducted at the site of the very first rocket launch from the Cape and it is yielding results of great historical importance. For this reason I have chosen to highlight some Bumper 8 covers. Bumper 8 was the first rocket launched from Cape Canaveral. It was a captured German V-2 rocket with a WAC Corporal second stage. Many V-2 launches were conducted at White Sands Missile Range during the late 40's. The problem was that the range is 300 miles long but only 50 miles wide. As the captured V-2 program proceeded, higher and higher altitudes were achieved. This meant that as the rockets were launched almost straight up, Earth rotated under its flight path. The rockets started coming down outside the range. The Army needed a different launch site to help prevent this. Contrary to popular belief, the Army built a sophisticated facility at Cape Canaveral and designated it Launch Pad 3. It had been thought that the pad was simply a concrete slab but it was much more than that. It had an underground and a complex deluge system. There was a tarpaper shack not too far from the pad that was the blockhouse and launch control center. For many years the concrete slab that the blockhouse sat on was lost. The Florida vegetation quickly consumed the concrete. It was found and cleared for the 50th Anniversary of the Bumper 8 launch. It was found again recently by some archeology students from the University of Central Florida and some fantastic artifacts have been found. Be sure to look into articles written about the Pad 3 blockhouse. As a docent for the Cape Canaveral Space Force Museum I have been to Pad 3 many times. Not much to see but still really cool to stand in the footsteps of history. Bumper 8 launch covers do not exist. How cool would that be! But luckily for such an historic launch a good number of anniversary covers do exist. The first cover pictured is a Bob Whitney cover for the 30th anniversary of the Bumper 8 launch. The second cover is for the 35th anniversary of the launch that was produced by the Missile Stamp Club. The third cover is for the 50th anniversary of the launch. It has a beautiful printed cachet and has multiple cancels. It has cancels from Cape Canaveral and Kennedy Space Center on the front and Cocoa Beach and Patrick Air Force Base on the back. What other Bumper 8 covers do you have?
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