posted 03-07-2010 09:50 AM               

Space Cover #47, Space Junk to Space Cover

This week's Space Cover of the Week is a unique item made from space junk! While going through some of my Goldcraft covers I noticed that one of them had a stuffer and it had something on it. When I pulled the stuffer out of the envelope it turned out that it had on it a "practice" cachet George Goldey had done for Discoverer 8. The practice cachet is on the back of an advertisement card for what looks to be a water trough. In addition to the Discoverer 8 cachet you can see an upside down/backwards wording for "NIKE ACHILLES ROCKET FIRED NAHA OKINAWA" (one of the rarest Goldcraft covers) and very faint behind those words is an upside down version of the cachet George Goldey used for his Ham launch covers.

With the anniversary of the Discoverer 8 launch approaching I sent it to Vandenberg AFB to obtain the 50th anniversary cancel date of November 20, 2009. The scan shows the card and cancel.

The Discoverer 8 / CORONA 9005 / KH-1 spacecraft was designated 1959-014A. Its sponsor was the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office and launched 20 November 1959 at 19h 25m UTC, from Vandenberg Air Force Base's LC-75-3-5, by a Thor Agena A (Thor 212 / Agena A 1050). It was to be a first generation low resolution photo surveillance satellite. Film capsule recovery failed.

Be on the lookout as you never know what you may find as an opportunity to create an item for your collection - this was literally George Goldey's Space Junk to my Space Cover!