posted 06-26-2016 10:07 AM               

Space Cover 374: Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) Official Cachets

The Marshall Space Flight Center was responsible for the creation and testing of the Saturn rockets and later the shuttle rockets. As such, many collectors sent covers to MSFC for cancelling for launches of those rockets. Through the Apollo program, the covers were returned to collectors with the appropriate cancel, but without any cachet. However, with the launches of Skylab 1, the space station itself, and then the Skylab 2, the first manned launch to the Skylab station, line art and text cachets appeared on returned covers.

Curiosity drove me to write to the MFSC Public Affairs Office (PAO) on August 8, 1973, asking for information about cachets and I was rewarded with a letter dated August 30, 1973, on MFSC stationery from Amos Crisp, of the Public Services Branch of the PAO. He wrote back, in part:

During the Apollo flights we always received here at MFSC covers with requests that they be postmarked on the day of launch. This was in recognition of our role as developmental center of Saturn launch vehicles.

Because of an interest in philately, I became sort of a collection point of these Apollo covers, arranging for their posting on the proper date. While doing this, I noticed that many of the envelopes were unmarked: just plain white covers. Some of the collectors requested that our cachet be placed on the envelopes. Of course, since we did not have one, I could only send them back plain. There just never seemed to be time to have one designed. However, for Skylab, we wrote into the plan the servicing of plain envelope covers for each of the four flights — the first launch of the unmanned workshop and then the three following manned missions. Since most of the other cachets highlighted the astronaut crews, I decided to highlight the launch vehicle and the workshop to better illustrate the mission of the MSFC. I roughed out the design and our graphics department refined it and that's about it.

In a second letter from Mr. Crisp, he advised me that when the second solar panel failed to open, he used a pen knife to remove one of the solar panels from the previously prepared rubber stamp came back so that it reflected the way the workshop actually looked with just one panel.

Evidently the program continued as above you can see the cachet created for the Apollo Soyuz Test Project. Two years after that I received a MSFC cover back for the 1st Static Firing of the Space Shuttle Booster on July 18, 1977, followed by cachets applied from both MSFC and New Orleans for the Rollout of the Space Shuttle Booster Tank on September 9, 1977. I have covers for 25 shuttle related events through 1992.

I would like to create a checklist of all of the MSFC Official Cachets. If you have any, send me an email at raycartier09@gmail.com and I will send you a listing of the covers of which I'm aware. In return I would like to receive scans of any cacheted covers that any of you may have which are not on my list.

Note that I have also obtained MSFC Official cachets on two covers from Huntsville, AL and one from Pearlington, Mississippi along with on other from KSC on 7/10/79. Once you see several of these you can see why MSFC cachets from these other sites are easily recognizable. They are all in line art.

posted 06-28-2016 01:05 PM               

Like Ray, I also sent covers off to MSFC for various space events and tests and was rewarded with a number of cacheted covers for various events, including Skylab, ASTP and early Shuttle events.

Here are a couple of examples of MSFC official cacheted covers for Space Shuttle events: Arrival of Orbiter Enterprise at MSFC and a Shuttle vibration test (These cachets scanned blue, but are actually black, as are all the MSFC cachets I've seen).