posted 08-30-2009 07:17 PM               

Space Cover #20, The First Lifting Body Cover That Wasn't

Last week, Bob McLeod told us about the official cachets for the X-24B lifting body research vehicle. The X-24B was the last in a series of rocket powered wingless lifting bodies used by NASA to ferret out possible configurations for the (then) future Space Shuttle, and in the case of the X-24B, to actually test Space Shuttle landing profiles. As you can see from Bob's article, the X-24B was a metal arrowhead-shaped craft that really looked like something from the space program. And the covers for the X-24B were pretty sophisticated too!

The first lifting body didn't start out so auspiciously. The M2-F1 was a small, tub-shaped plywood glider that got its start being towed to a few feet in altitude behind a souped-up Pontiac at Edwards AFB in 1963 (below). The intent was just to see if a wingless airplane could fly and land.

In at least 90 "tow" tests behind the Pontiac between April and August, 1963 the little M2-F1 flew and landed successfully. On August 16, 1963, the M2-F1 was towed into the air behind NASA's C-47 cargo plane and released at altitude to successfully glide to a landing. So far, this was solely a NASA "in-house" project at Edwards and not known to the general public.

On September 3, 1963, the press was invited to Edwards to view the M2-F1 and to watch two air towed flights performed by pilot Milt Thompson. And a few covers actually got postmarked at Edwards that day for the flights that day (above). These covers had two simple rubber stamped cachets - "Lifting Body M-2" and "First Flight" (the latter apparently because the cachet applier, along with the press believed that these were the first flights of the M2-F1). Later M2-F1 covers stayed equally simple, using the same "Lifting Body M-2" rubber stamp or even pen-and-ink for the cachets.

The M2-F1 flew about 400 missions (counting both air and ground tows) through 1966. But covers were only serviced for a handful of these flights. Cover dates that I have seen are:

• September 3, 1963
  
• January 29, 1964
  
• January 30, 1964
  
• March 30, 1964
  
• April 9, 1964
  
• May 19, 1964
  
• August 19, 1964 (day after posting for Aug. 18 flight)
  
• February 16, 1965
  
• February 24, 1965
  
• March 29, 1965
  
• October 6, 1965
  
• October 8, 1965
  
• March 28, 1966
  
• July 19, 1966 (Actually canceled as an M2-F2 cover, M2-F1 also flew that day)
  
• August 4, 1966
  
• August 16, 1966 (n.b. cachet calls this a M2-F2 flight)

There are also M2-F1 covers around that are postmarked on May 9, 1964, but I've never been able to find a logged flight of the M2-F1 for that date.

Anyone seen any others?