posted 05-15-2012 09:13 AM               

It was a letter addressed to me when I was a high school student written by T. W. Holloway, NASA's Apollo Data File Manager at the Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston.

Here are a few excerpts from it that I thought would be interesting to share with other Apollo flight plan collectors;

1. Approximately 2,300 flight plans (each edition) were printed for each Apollo mission.

2. About 1,300 of those were distributed to NASA and needed support contractors. The remainder of the 2,300 copies (1,000) were supplied to various PAO (Public Affairs Offices) for distribution to the press and interested members of the public such as yourself.

3. As you might imagine, copies of Apollo Flight Plan manuals become very hard to find after each mission.

posted 05-18-2012 01:29 PM            

Each of my Final Flight Plans (Apollos 12, 14, 15 and 16) has this serrated edge, with pages stuck together in small batches.

posted 05-18-2012 10:32 PM               

I'm the lucky owner of all the flight plans of the Apollo missions from Apollo 7 to Apollo 17 (many signed by astronauts). In fact find Apollo 8 was apologetic and very expensive. (Lovell when he saw for to sign: but where the hell did you find it!) Flight plans are not raised easily duplicated because have the patina of time.

posted 05-19-2012 04:36 PM               

quote:

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Originally posted by Blackarrow:
What about the early missions, 7-10?

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posted 05-22-2012 05:16 AM               

quote:

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Originally posted by Blackarrow:
Can someone who is familiar with the Flight Plans confirm that ALL Apollo Flight Plans have the serrated spine?

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posted 05-23-2012 11:13 AM               

• Apollo 7 - pink
  
• Apollo 8 - light blue
  
• Apollo 11 - pinky orange or orangey pink
  
• Apollo 12 - light blue
  
• Apollo 13 - pink
  
• Apollo 14 - light blue
  
• Apollo 16 - light green
  
• Apollo 17 - white

posted 05-23-2012 05:45 PM            

I suppose the overall point I am making is that if you bid on eBay for a fairly rare NASA book (say the hardback edition of "Stages to Saturn") it's hardly likely that it's a fake. No-one is going to set up a printing process to fake an old book.

But if you bid for an Apollo 11 Final Flight Plan (valued in four figures) might it be worth someone's while to use a sophisticated scanner/printer and a couple of artificially "stressed" and suitably coloured pieces of thin card to create a plausible fake Flight Plan?

The would-be fraudster faces two main problems: the serrated edge and our old friend the rusty staple. I don't see how anyone could duplicate the serrated edge, but I am aware that it's not uncommon to remove the staple to prevent rust damage to the pages.

The problem as I see it is that if someone has just paid a very substantial sum for a Final Flight Plan and finds that (1)the original rusty "period" staple has been replaced or just removed; and (2) the spine is not serrated; how can they be confident that their purchase is genuine? Yellowing paper? How long would it take to "age" a batch of paper left out in sunlight?

Is this a little paranoid? Perhaps, but how far will fraudsters go to make a big profit?