Ken Havekotte
Member Posts: 3124
From: Merritt Island, Florida, Brevard
Registered: Mar 2001
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posted 04-11-2020 12:26 PM
   
Today (April 11, 2020) marks the 50th anniversary of the launch of humanity's third lunar landing mission — Apollo 13 — with veteran Gemini and Apollo astronaut Jim Lovell and first-time space fliers Fred Haise and Jack Swigert.Today the epic lunar voyage is remembered for the heroic efforts of thousands of ground support personnel along with the three crewmen.  We all know the story; After a trouble-free launch to the moon's Fra Mauro highlands on April 11, 1970, at nearly 56 hours into the flight, Apollo 13 was in serious trouble! The crew was about 200,000 miles away from earth, about half way to the moon, when an explosion inside the spacecraft's Service Module occurred just after 10:00 pm (EST) on April 13. The rupture was caused by a failure in the No. 2 oxygen tank of Apollo 13's electrical power supply of their Command/Service Module, named Odyssey. On that Monday night (April 13) this young teenager had just went to bed that evening after hearing the Apollo 13 astronauts would be bedding down for the rest of the evening. Otherwise, it seemed to be a normal or perfect mission to date. Suddenly, the door to my bedroom burst open — It was my older brother saying to me, "The astronauts are in big trouble... listen to the TV!" I said to Michael, "no they're not, stop fooling around, go away." Well, needles to say, I stayed up that night for a couple more hours glued to the CBS breaking news coverage, as I'm sure most of us did. There was no turning back. The crippled spacecraft and its crew had to use their Lunar Module, named Aquarius, for the harrowing half-million mile voyage in space. The Grumman-built lunar lander served as the crew's "lifeboat" that had provided life-support and propulsion to get Lovell, Haise, and Swigert back home. After a slingshot-type maneuver around the moon on April 14, the crew returned safely to earth three days later to a safe landing in the south Pacific. Had the same-type accident in space occurred on Apollo 8, which orbited the moon in Dec. 1968 without a lunar module, its three crewmen would have died in space. The curtain was brought down on the most harried and critical flight emergency of the entire NASA manned space flight program. Never in recorded history has a journey of such peril been watched and waited-out by most of the entire human race. Above is a panel presentation of mostly Apollo 13 crew signed postal covers, VIP cards, and postcards. In addition, though, included is a flown American flag, a mission cloth patch that went around the moon, and actual spacecraft relics that were a part of Apollo 13's Odyssey and Aquarius throughout the six day-long space journey — all hand signed by the crew, some of which included original Command Module Pilot Ken Mattingly. He had been replaced by backup Jack Swigert just two days before Apollo 13 was launched into space. Space medical officials had feared that Mattingly might be coming down with the German measles, which he never got, but the doctors had insisted that his backup should fly in his place. This tribute montage, while mostly a focus on the crewmen themselves, doesn't include any of the flight team and other support personnel signed covers. Perhaps that can be the topic of another Apollo 13 philatelic display panel here and with other Apollo 13 collectors sharing their covers as well. But one of the covers shown (placed over Swigert's signed litho), is a rare Grumman-made LM-7 printed cachet cover for the Apollo 13 launch at Kennedy by/for the KSC Grumman launch team. While not signed, it's the only one that I know of after half-a-century has gone by. |
Ken Havekotte
Member Posts: 3124
From: Merritt Island, Florida, Brevard
Registered: Mar 2001
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posted 04-11-2020 04:22 PM
Thanks, Robert, as that means a lot coming from you, and do you not have one of the B.C. Apollo 13 press decal stickers? If not, I'll save one for you.Anyway, unfortunately, there were no plans from SpaceCoast Cover Service of requesting an official USPS pictorial hand cancel for the Kennedy Space Center and nearby Cape Canaveral for the golden anniversary of man's third lunar landing mission. Also, Walter, thanks for sharing the flown Apollo 13 postal cover by Lovell. It's unfortunate, though, that Swigert never did sign any of the flown envelopes, as far as I know, after their return from the moon. |
micropooz
Member Posts: 1565
From: Washington, DC, USA
Registered: Apr 2003
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posted 04-11-2020 05:41 PM
Below is my favorite Apollo 13 cover.
In the late 1980's, I bought (or traded for, I can't remember) this cover, unautographed, from Eunice Radnofsky of Rand Philatelics. It was hand canceled in Houston on the recovery date for Apollo 13. I liked the vintage "Space Team" sticker that Eunice had applied as the cachet.In 1990 JSC had a small Apollo 13 20th anniversary celebration. Gene Kranz, John Aaron, Jerry Bostick, and Gerry Griffin all spoke and graciously autographed this cover (top to bottom). This was before the book "Lost Moon" and the movie "Apollo 13" made these guys mainstream heroes. That fact along with the "Space Team" (emphasis on TEAM) sticker make this my fave Apollo 13 cover. Without these guys and their TEAM, Apollo 13 could have ended up a whole lot differently.  |
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