posted 12-18-2022 01:37 PM               

Space Cover 681: Apollo 16 Lunar Surface Ultraviolet Camera/Spectrograph

Among the payloads left for astronauts of Apollo 16 on lunar surface was the Lunar Surface Ultraviolet Camera/Spectrograph (UVC) which became the first moon based observatory. This project was designed, produced and manufactured by Naval Research Laboratory located at Washington, DC.

Above image shows a very common space cover commemorating this event. Cover depicts this laboratory with a blue rubber stamp cachet and is postmarked at Washington, DC by a Smithsonian meter April 20, 1972.

For sure almost all of the readers have this cover in their collections.

Usually in astrophilatelic terms, collectors are looking for different space covers commemorating the same space event. It means looking for space covers with SAME postmark but with DIFFERENT cachet.

Today, I encourage to change this point of view and search for a space cover with SAME cachet but with DIFFERENT postmark, respecting date and place of course.

In this way, I am able to demonstrate how deep astrophilatelic material can be and how are our knowledge about the appropriate material.

See below some examples:

Another space cover with same RSC (rubber stamp cachet) but with different Washington DC Smithsonian meter.

Same RSC but this time with a Washington DC text meter.

Same RSC but this time with a Washington DC wavy line meter. Note the added two red ink lines Landing Delay 6 Hours / Lunar Step Down 21 April 72.

It opens the chance to look for another date than April 20 (scheduled landing date) for April 21 (actual landing date).

Now same cover than previous one but with Washington DC meter dated April 21, 1972.

Another Washington DC meter (different font letters and figures) dated April 21, 1972.

And still another cover of this space event with Washington text meter dated April 21, 1972.

After this post, I invite to check in your albums if you have other cover versions with this same RSC but with different postmark to those shown here.

I am quite sure you can find something different. Please, be nice to show here. It would be appreciated. Thanks.

posted 12-18-2022 04:29 PM               

Here are two more, however, the top issue is the same pictorial cancel type already depicted, but it has been autographed by Dr. George R. Carruthers.

The second cover-image is of a different NRL-cancel design for the USPS Philatelic Exhibition on April 20 in Washington, D.C. I've also included another event cover by Space City Cover Society with a cachet design "First Moon-Based Astronomer" referring to Apollo 16 mission commander John Young with a Houston April 21st cancel in 1972.

Now then, let be get back to Dr. Carruthers, one of the world's outstanding astrophysicists who developed, designed, and fabricated the Apollo 16 far-ultraviolet camera/spectrograph lunar surface experiment for NASA by the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C.

He was an African-American inventor, physicist, engineer, and space scientist. For the first time, scientists were able to examine the Earth's atmosphere from afar for concentrations of pollutants and see UV-images of more than 550 stars, nebulae, and galaxies. In the 1980's, one of Carruthers inventions captured an UV-image of Halley's Comet and in 1991, he invented a camera that was used on the Space Shuttle. The popular "Sky and Telescope" magazine published two articles about Carruthers and his UV-space studies in March and July 1972.