posted 11-03-2024 06:25 AM               

Space Cover 778: Gemini 11 at Last!

In searching for an idea for this Space Cover of the Week (SCOTW), I discovered that in the last 777 entries, we have had at least one article on each of the crewed Mercury, Gemini and Apollo flights except for one – Gemini 11.

So above is a Gemini 11 Captain's Cover, hand cancelled onboard the USS Guam on September 15, 1966 when she recovered Pete Conrad and Dick Gordon and their Gemini 11 capsule. This cover is on a #6 envelope, these were also done on other sized envelopes. The cachet shows a silhouette of the Guam over a silhouette of a Gemini capsule with the words "Gemini 11, Recovery, USS Guam LPH9".

And seasoned collectors will recognize that the crew signatures on the cover are pre-printed as part of the cachet. Newer collectors beware – some dealers will try to sell these as real autographs, they are not.

Gemini 11 was one of the series of late-Gemini, three-day missions packed with tests to help develop Apollo flight techniques. Gemini 11 launched on September 12, 1966, demonstrating direct ascent and rendezvous with little ground assistance, something the Apollo lunar module would have to do after leaving the Moon.

Conrad and Gordon were able to rendezvous and dock with their Agena target vehicle on their very first orbit. They used the Agena rocket engine to boost their orbit to 854 miles high (an Earth orbit altitude record for human flight that stood until the recent SpaceX Polaris Dawn mission).

Gordon performed a spacewalk to attach a tether between the Gemini and Agena, finding that the EVA was more difficult than anticipated (a common finding for EVAs on Geminis 9 - 11). Once Gordon was back inside, they separated from the Agena and used the tether to experiment with gravity-gradient attitude control and making artificial gravity by spinning the tethered vehicles.

After that, Gordon did a "standup" EVA to photograph the Earth, clouds, and stars. As shown above, Gemini 11 returned to Earth on September 15 and was recovered by the Guam.

Gemini 11 was an incredibly busy and successful mission, that we SCOTW folks haven't paid attention to until now! So, let's all show Pete and Dick some overdue respect and show off our favorite Gemini 11 covers! Please post 'em!

posted 11-03-2024 10:16 AM               

The second cover is a USS Guam recovery ship cover using the Orbit cachet envelope and is signed by the GT-11 crew. On the back of the cover the ship recovery rubber stamp was applied, and it is signed by the Captain of the USS Guam Stephen Thomas De La Mater.

posted 11-03-2024 11:07 AM               

To add to Dennis' excellent GT-11 Captain's cover, I've shown here two crew signed GT-11 covers: a GT-11 official NASA/KSC cacheted cover and a USS Guam rubber stamp PRS cover.

With an interest in astronaut signed letters, I arranged for Richard Gordon to prepare a letter to me especially about GT-11's 850+ mile high altitude orbital flight and to also include special remembrances about Apollo 12. I paid him twice his standard autograph fee for the letter and wasn't disappointed. His very interesting and informative 2-page hand written letter is shown here.