posted 11-03-2013 04:48 AM               

Space Cover #238: Skylab Space Suit Fit Check Covers

This week's cover was postmarked in Dover, DE on August 15, 1972, the day that Skylab astronaut Bill Pogue got fitted for his space suit at ILC Industries in Dover. It carries a printed cachet of an astronaut in a Skylab EVA suit and the printed wording "Skylab Astronaut Space Suit Fit Check". Whoever serviced the cover added the rubber stamped notations of "Space Suit 627" and "Wm. Pogue". Sometime later, Pogue inscribed and signed the cover.

The postcard below, published by Heitz Photoptric Service, Dover, DE shows the ILC built Apollo lunar suit underlayer (left) and cover layer (right). The Skylab suits were similar.

Covers like today's Space Cover of the Week were produced for spacesuit fit-checks for most of the Skylab crewman. The McMahan Catalog lists the following:

Date		Crewman
8/1/72		Lind (backup crewman)
8/10/72		Carr (suit #626)
8/15/72		Pogue (suit #627) (pictured above)
8/16/72		Lenoir (backup crewman)
8/28/72		Gibson (suit #628)
9/22/72		Kerwin
9/28/72		Weitz
10/12/72		Bean
10/19/72		Lousma
10/26/72		Carr (suit #635)
11/6/72		Garriott
11/7/72		Pogue (suit #637)
11/14/72		Gibson (suit #636)

Notable omissions are suit check covers for Conrad, and backup crewmen Schweickart, McCandless, Musgrave, and Brand.

So does anyone else have other Skylab Astronaut Fit Check covers? Anyone know more of the story behind these covers?