posted 03-19-2024 12:24 PM               

Depicted below is one of the first multi-posted shuttle covers that I had personally handled that became an all-day space philatelic quest.

Space Shuttle Discovery on Mission 51-G, with a crew of seven astronauts, lifted off Pad 39A at 7:33 am with no delays, which was going to be a big asset to me that whole day. My plan after launch from the Kennedy Space Center was to make a quick stopover visit to as many Florida Space Coast post offices as I could before their closing times in the late afternoon hours.

On launch morning, I had with me at Shuttle Press Site 39 and the nearby main VIP viewing site ten (10) Shuttle 51-G crew-mission cachet covers. When leaving the space center after launch with my covers in tow, the postal station stops in getting the covers cancelled for launch were KSC, Cape Canaveral, Cocoa Beach, Patrick AFB, Satellite Beach, Rockledge, Cocoa, Sharpes, Titusville at Astronaut Trail Station, and Merritt Island! Keep in mind that each of the mentioned post offices had some direct connection to NASA here at Kennedy with the shuttle program, rather big or small.

Around 3:00 pm that afternoon, which included a lunch break, mission had been accomplished after more than a hundred mile drive to and from the space center "with on-site" and "same day" postal cancels from ten different post offices scattered in all directions of the Space Coast. Both cover surfaces had to be used (as shown) and with time to spare before the last P.O. closing time. Why go to all this trouble some might think for different launch day postal cancels? No main reason, actually, but it was just a lot of fun in covering a shuttle launch event in a different and challenging way to help "expand the envelope so-to-speak."

Similar shuttle covers of mine were also done for a few other early launches and orbiter landings. For instance, the first KSC-shuttle landing, which was Mission 41-B/Challenger in 1984, had multi-launch day cancels on front with several landing postmarks on the back-side. For shuttle Discovery's maiden launch in August 1984, I had a request from a German space cover dealer asking for 100 crew-mission cachet covers with multiple launch day hand cancels of KSC/CC/MI/PAFB, which had been done. On other occasions, I used official STS-1/Columbia launch covers for applying launch day cancels for the first nine shuttle missions, using both cover surfaces. The first and last shuttle flight covered had been commanded by John Young (STS-1 in 1981 and STS-9/Spacelab-1 in 1983).

posted 03-21-2024 11:14 AM               

While not a big deal or anything with the multiple cancelled shuttle covers and others, I just wanted to "expand the envelope" a bit in their creation. It was a lot of fun and required a set agenda (or plan) in trying to pull something like this off with so many different postal cancels involved, all being "on-site," and in trying to acquire hand cancels on the same day as launch or landing.

Another factor(s) is how would the launch day traffic be with so much travel distance and stopovers along with possibly some postal clerks perhaps not honoring same-day cancels with a hand-back service or over-the-counter.
Never said before was the fact that all of the hand stamp cancels used on these projects were handled by myself in applying them to my own covers with their applications and placements.

Talk about other multi-posted projects like this, take for instance two or more of major Apollo 11 anniversaries in which the US Postal Service were issuing new first day issue stamps. In one such occasion, I had two associates of mine fly up to Washington, D.C. for the July 20, 1989 official FDI ceremonies and afterwards would purchase more than a thousand of the new $2.40 Priority Mail rate stamps depicting Armstrong and Aldrin on the moon with the US flag. While in D.C. they would affix the postage stamps to our covers in tow and have them properly "on site" first day posted.

But now, here comes the challenging part of such an enormous space cover operation. Once all the covers had been processed in D.C., my team flew back on a jetliner to Orlando, FL, and in driving after a 50-minute ride from the airport to "home base" on Merritt Island with the already-processed first day covers in hand. Next up was more stamping for other cover uses at a quick pace that had to be finished up around 3 p.m. that same afternoon becoming more time critical.

With the same D.C. covers in tow, postal stops were made at KSC, Cape Canaveral, Merritt Island, and if there was time before post office closing time, at Titusville's popular Astronaut Trail Station, which would be the final stop. The result would be unusual first day space covers containing multiple "on site" and "same day" Wash. D.C. and Florida Space Coast postal cancels all combined together. End result (see below) was that everything went quite well as hoped for such a difficult and costly endeavor with logistics planning, long distances, and travel time required for the special all-day national space philately event in celebrating the 20th anniversary of man's first lunar landing.