posted 06-08-2025 07:26 AM               

Space Cover 809: Mercury to Shuttle — Their last day

There were 166 NASA manned spaceflights in the Mercury (6), Gemini (10), Apollo (15), Skylab (3), ASTP (1) and Space Shuttle (135) programs. This Space Cover of the Week presents covers postmarked on the last day that each of these six programs ended. Five will be covers from the Prime Recovery Ships involved in the ocean recoveries and one a landing cover. Also these covers are autographed by the crews that flew the last spaceflight of each program.

The Mercury Program ended with its final flight (Mercury-Atlas 9) aboard the Prime Recovery Ship USS Kearsarge in 1963; the Gemini Program ended with Gemini-Titan 12 aboard the USS Wasp in 1968; the Apollo Program ended with Apollo 17 aboard the USS Ticonderoga in 1972; the Skylab Program ended with Skylab-4 aboard the USS New Orleans in 1973; the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project ended aboard the USS New Orleans in 1975; and the Space Shuttle Program ended with STS-135 and the landing of Orbiter Atlantis on the KSC Shuttle Landing Facility in 2011.

Above are covers from the MA-9 PRS USS Kearsarge and below the GT-12 PRS USS Wasp.

The top cover is an Apollo 17 USS Ticonderoga PRS cover and below a Skylab-4 USS New Orleans PRS cover.

The top cover is an ASTP launch cover with an official NASA/KSC rubber stamp cachet and autographed by both the US Apollo crew and the Soviet Soyuz crew. Below is a New Orleans PRS cover with the ship's official cachet applied. Of note is that the postmark is dated the day after the recovery, as the ship's post office was closed on recovery day - for a reason I don't remember.

The cover at the top is an STS-135 KSC launch cover and is autographed by the final Space Shuttle crew, and the bottom cover is canceled on the date of the landing of Atlantis, which ended both the STS-135 flight and also the end of the 135-flight Space Shuttle Program.

The very special STS-135 landing cover honors the 30-year Shuttle Program and the five Orbiters that flew the 135 flights.

Concerning the Space Shuttle Program - one of my collecting regrets is not having an STS-1 launch cover canceled again at KSC for the STS-135 landing of Atlantis, from: "We have ignition!" on the first Shuttle launch on STS-1, to "Wheels Stop" on STS-135 - a span of 30 years, which included 21,152 orbits and over 542 million miles around the earth. Any such covers out there?

posted 06-09-2025 07:11 AM               

Concerning Tim's comment about inscriptions added to my covers along with the autographs, I've always liked to have flight-related inscriptions added to autographs.

To accomplish this, I would attach a Post-it note to the cover asking for the astronaut to please sign and I'd add a brief inscription I'd like and certainly thank him/her - it was asking a little extra.

This was successful about 90% of the time and added an extra element to the item signed.