posted 05-23-2010 10:57 PM               

Space Cover #58, ASTP Cachet and Cancellations

The Space Cover of the Week consists of two covers. The first cover is an ASTP launch cover with Official NASA RSC used on July 15, 1975 from Kennedy Space Center (KSC).

First a little information about the KSC PO. The KSC Post Office is a contract operation by Atlantic Technical Services. The Contract Project Manager was Mr. Alfred Nelson. The NASA-Supervisor was John Mace who was assisted by Essie Coleman. The purpose of a US post office on a restricted site was for the convenience of the center and the contractors located there. This facilitates the flow of mail which otherwise would have been taken to Cape Canaveral of Titusville for mailing. KSC is a substation of the Orlando PO. The two KSC ASTP rubber stamp cachets were ordered on May 27, 1975 and received on June 11, 1975. the cachet was applied to all covers received up to the day before launch. Particular attention was given to the limit of five per requestor. The KSC ASTP cachet was shredded on July 16, 1975. 53,529 covers received the ASTP RSC and another 26,690 covers received only the KSC cancellation (no cachet).

On July 17, 1975 a special pictorial cancel was used at KSC and Houston commemorating the linkup of Apollo and Soyuz. 235,500 covers received the KSC cancel and 103,127 covers received the Houston cancel (only the Houston cancel shown).