posted 11-14-2021 10:29 AM               

Space Cover #629: A launch on my birthday

A very special birthday present for us serious space fans would be a manned launch on our birthday.

I know of two space collectors who have had such special birthday presents, plus occurring on two very historic space launch anniversaries. Both have April 12 as their birthdays, which was the date of Vostok 1 with Yuri Gagarin becoming the 1st person in space and also exactly twenty years later, the launch of the 1st space shuttle, STS-1.

Finally my time had come after waiting for 159 US manned space launches, as on my birthday, August 28, 2009, with the launch of STS-128, I got to finally celebrate my birthday on a day that a US space launch occurred. But barely, as the launch took place at 11:59 PM, with just one minute to spare!

These two covers mark the STS-128 flight, with the top cover an STS-128 crew patch/crew emblem cachet cover and nicely canceled at KSC on August 28, 2009, and with the other cover also canceled on August 28, 2009 and autographed by the STS-128 crew.

posted 11-17-2021 08:47 AM               

Unfortunately, I had no birthdays on any U.S. human space launch after 170 liftoffs here from the Florida Space Coast. I did come close to a shuttle Discovery launch on Feb. 11, 1997 (STS-82) by one day, but with no cigar or birthday candles lit.

About the only time I did celebrate a personal event-achievement that involved a major space shot, even though it wasn't a birthday of mine, was on July 1, 1997 here at the space center.

It was the launch of STS-94/Columbia, which became my 100th manned space launch viewing. At the time, I had witnessed "live" and mostly closeup 100 NASA manned liftoffs in sequence from 1968, starting with Apollo 7 that Oct., and ending with STS-94 in July 1997. It included all 15 Apollo-related flights and all 85 shuttle launches from 1968-97. Afterwards, my live viewing record was second in the world with on-site primary viewing for 134 shuttle liftoffs, however, STS-129 was not viewed on the space center, but from an ocean cruise ship several miles off the coast of Port Canaveral.

Of the Apollo flights, most were viewed from VIP areas with ASTP at Press Site 39, along with all of the shuttle liftoffs from Press Site 39 with the only exception of two flights that were covered from the main VIP viewing site area. The cover below was issued for that special unique "space" occasion in my life.

posted 11-18-2021 06:04 AM               

Ken didn't miss any, with one exception, and his record must be close to unique with witnessing in person all 15 Apollo launches and all but one of the 135 space shuttle launches. I'm sure his record has continued with the SpaceX manned launches.

posted 11-20-2021 07:30 AM               

Top: Gemini 4 launch Orbit Cachet with (top-to-bottom): McDivitt autopen, White autograph, and McDivitt autograph.

Bottom: Gemini 9 launch Spacecraft Cachet.