posted 12-18-2024 05:42 PM               

By working on many signature projects, mainly here at Kennedy Space Center, I wanted to focus and concentrate of celebrating the unsung heroes of our space exploration endeavors at the time. This would involve a lot of hard work, first, in contacting the Apollo/Saturn Program directorates, major divisions, and key departments. The early signature collections were of NASA and those primary space industry contractors that all made it possible for Americans to land on the moon and other essential robotic achievements in outer space.

Displayed here are three such panel presentations with nearly 300 different autographs of space officials and workers of that pioneering era in space travel. All the signatures are genuine, which I do believe, might be one-of-kind or never duplicated again. Group signatures by workers, though granted, may appear on employee retirement photos, awards, and other gifts, but not likely in the formats depicted here. Some of those formats in gathering many signatures may seem rather crude, however, during that era I was a young teenager with limited resources.

The first grouping at top right of the panel illustrates NASA Launch Vehicle Operations at KSC that had been hand signed by all the key Apollo/Saturn personnel. Many of the the space agency signers on the prepared two white sheets of government stationery were by veteran rocket and space pioneers of when NASA first got established and the creation of Kennedy Space Center, but also, even beforehand during the 1950's mainly with the Department of Defense (US Army, Air Force, Navy, and their support contractor organizations) while test firing their first missiles and rockets here at the Cape.

It should be pointed out that dozens of personnel signatures included were working at their firing room console stations at KSC's Launch Control Center for all the Apollo/Saturn liftoffs (Apollo 7's blockhouse team included) of the 400+ highly-skilled launch team. To this day, I have never seen a single LCC-photo or anything else that has been signed by most of the Saturn firing room team, except for those here by NASA, Boeing, and NAA/Rockwell.

Over on the left side of the exhibition are major management, supervisory, and chief engineers of North American Aviation (Rockwell) at Kennedy working on the Apollo/Saturn S-II rocket stage and the Apollo command and service module programs.

Right above is a second montage of multiple signatures representing the Boeing Atlantic Test Center of the Saturn/Apollo/Skylab Division of launch vehicles. The autographs are of prominent test and systems engineering personnel of the Saturn V first stage and for providing design and systems engineering support of Launch Complex 39.

If there is any further interest, there are many other space group signatures that can be shared in future postings, such as other top level NASA folks (including all the Apollo primary test supervisors and conductors seen below for now), Chrysler at Kennedy on a multi-signed photo, Martin Marietta's Titan III with key Mars Viking project personnel, the Rocketdyne H-1, F-1 and J-2 engine folks, and General Dynamics/Convair of their powerful Atlas-Centaur rocket combination of going to the moon, conducting planetary flybys, and well beyond into deep space.

posted 12-20-2024 07:03 AM               

You used the word "passion" to describe your involvement as a space collector and fan back then and many of us earlier collectors also had a great passion for space and collecting.

I also did somewhat like you did in assembling space workers' autographs together, but mine usually involved multiple-mailings back and forth, with yours evidently assembled at one time with a lot of leg work probably by secretaries to gather all the autographs from various offices and locations.

posted 12-20-2024 10:36 AM               

Take for instance the Rocketdyne division of NAA/Rockwell International stationed here. By surprise, their public relations office actually invited me to their offices at the space center. They gave me a tour of their offices and laboratories at the KSC Industrial Area, and afterwards, presented me with a 16" x 32" montage (partially seen above) containing hundreds and hundreds of Rocketdyne employee signatures on it. I was told that most everyone signed within 2-3 weeks for completion and that the event was used as a public affairs article in their local company newsletter.

The Rocketdyne employee signatures above were those that worked on the Apollo/Saturn H-1, F-1, and J-2 rocket engine programs along with the early design phases of the incoming Space Shuttle Main Engine (SSME) at the time in 1972. The liquid-fueled rocket engine company had their graphics department design all the different Rocketdyne departmental sections that pertained to the signers' specific work areas. It's no longer in the best condition in which half of the montage had to be destroyed with severely damaged areas. Some of the signed panels seen at bottom right had actually fallen off from their attached locations, but were saved nevertheless, as you can see.

The Atlas-Agena launch photo at top left has been signed by nearly 500 workers. There are even more autographs on the back-side of the large mounted rocket launch picture.

It was given to me by the Cape's Lockheed Corporation during the early 1970's. Most of the signers, as I was told, were Lockheed folks along with some by General Dynamics, Bell Aerospace, and the U.S. Air Force that had all been assigned to the Air Force/NASA Atlas-Agena program. While the photo was being signed, it had been placed inside one of the Atlas-Agena support buildings of launch pads 12, 13, or 14, and at their main hangar/office facilities on the Air Force Eastern Test Range for signing.

The Atlas and Agena rocket combination flew 109 times from 1960-78 and were the first successful lunar and planetary probes. In addition, Gemini astronauts used Agena space target vehicles for rendezvous and docking techniques while in earth orbital flight.

The Viking Titan-Centaur 3E liftoff photo at right contains the signatures of Cape- assigned administration, management, and engineering section heads of the launch vehicle's Centaur upper stage built by the Convair Divison of General Dynamics. Viking-A was the first launch to the Red Planet of twin Viking spacecrafts in 1975 reaching the Martian surface for the first time a year later.

The Apollo 17 signed montage above was presented to me in 1973 with several interesting signers on the matted board. At top left is not a common signature or known by most space autograph collectors. He's Tom O'Malley, whom in Feb. 1962, hit the button that launched John Glenn's Mercury spacecraft into earth orbit by an Atlas-D rocket. Eleven years later O'Malley became Vice President and General Manager of Launch Operations for North American Aviation at the Cape, which became Rockwell International in 1973. That's when he signed this montage along with other Rockwell space age giants, such as pad leader Guenter Wendt, transferring Wendt over to Rockwell for the Apollo and early shuttle programs.

posted 12-22-2024 11:58 AM               

The other cover was involved in seven separate mailings and resulted in autographs of seven of the top NASA leaders during and before the Apollo Program.

This top cover (and one just like it) was a special project of mine that began in November 1980 before the launch of the first space shuttle on STS-1. After three autographs were applied, it was then postmarked at KSC for the STS-1 launch and then began its journey again to Prince Georges, MD for A. Thomas Young's autograph. Then the tenth and final autograph (William Lucas/MSFC, AL) finished it all in June 1981. Among the notables signing are Chris Kraft, Robert Frosch and Alan Lovelace, the acting NASA Administrator at the time of STS-1.

Turnaround was quick, as all ten autographs from ten different locations took only about 8 months. Locations sent to included Washington, DC, Huntsville, AL, KSC, Cleveland, OH.

The bottom cover - canceled for NASA's 20th anniversary - was signed by seven historic NASA leaders, including George Mueller, Robert Gilruth, George Low and Rocco Petrone.

This two-cover project began in August 1982 with a request to Dr. Mueller in Santa Monica, CA and ended with Dr. Brainard Holmes (First director of NASA manned spaceflight) in October 1983 from Boston.

It was both surprising and very fortunate that these covers, sent to many different people and locations around the country, survived their journeys and returned each time.

posted 01-02-2025 01:06 PM               

Here are two sad accounts of never returned multi-mailed autograph requests:

1) For me: an excellent STS-1 crew patch launch cover that my intention was to have signed by the eight astronauts of the four Space Shuttle Orbital Flight Test crews (STS-1 thru 4). Something that would have been rare and of special significance. It only lacked two autographs to be complete, and had the difficult autograph of John Young already on it, but when sent to astronaut number 7 for his and his crewmate's autograph, it never returned. That especially hurt, as that astronaut had always been reliable about autographing. Perhaps it was lost in the mail or maybe someone handling astronaut mail was responsible.

2) Here is an extremely sad story concerning another autograph collector:

This was 25-30 years ago when all the moonwalkers were alive except Jim Irwin. That collector had two lunar photos autographed by most of the moonwalkers thru the mail, one at a time, with one photo having about 7-8 autographs and the other lacking only about two.

He mailed both (bad idea) to moonwalker X and neither photo returned, so he lost everything he had worked so hard to assemble; everything gone.

Had he been more patient, there were many paid astronaut signings later, some at Novaspace, including the difficult John Young.

Anything autographed by all twelve moonwalkers together is the ultimate treasure for just about any astronaut autograph collector, with anything signed by all twelve a very rare thing indeed.

posted 01-14-2025 06:37 AM               

So having this book "The Real Space Cowboys" by Ed Buckbee with so many signatures with it to me is amazing. I'm still trying to ID some of the signatures, but a few here are:

• Bonnie Holmes, personal assistant to Wernher Von Braun as well as his secretary Nancy Guire
  
• Linda Posey - Lead Specialist Shuttle Program
  
• Dr. William W. Vaughn, Lead Engineer, Apollo
  
• Bill Shelton, General, Commander Air Force Space Command
  
• Archie Young- MSFC Apollo, Patriot Missile System
  
• Charles Lindquist - MSFC Director Space Sciences Lab

posted 01-14-2025 12:56 PM               

There was another lady that I knew from Florida's Space Coast that worked for her boss (von Braun), "The Professor," from 1949 to 1960 at the ABMA and GMDD. She reminds me a bit of Holmes and Guire. Her name was Dorothy Bennett and I was able to acquire her aerospace collection many years ago. She had some wonderful von Braun signed material that I cherish to this day. Dorothy had said during the 1950's she had worked in a little "cubby hole" next to her boss along with Dr. Kurt Debus two doors away. Let me share one of Dorothy's letters if you don't mind:

There were times when Dr. von Braun worked very long hours, even until midnight, and if I was lucky I didn't have to stay until that late hour. There were even times when von Braun, myself, and his staff members were forced to remove our shoes, socks/stockings, and wade through water that came up to the calf of our legs to get to our cars. This was in the rainy season, usually late at night, as roads then were mudholes. There were many more incidents like this, some hilarious, happy, sad, good and bad have made up my 20 years with the original German team.

posted 01-14-2025 10:14 PM               

"The Real Space Cowboys" book actually belongs to a good friend of mine in Huntsville, Tim Pickens, he built the propulsion system for Spaceship One and won the Ansari X Prize with Burt Rutan and Scaled Composites in early 2000's. He's also got some signed books by Wernher Von Braun, Hermann Oberth, and Ernst Stuhlinger. I think some of them they signed each other's own books too! Oberth's book was incredible to see first hand.

posted 01-21-2025 03:19 PM            

I'm not sure where the original is, as I only have copies of the original document. Does anyone know its whereabouts?

I'm seeing some familiar names, such as Buzz Aldrin, James Lovell, J.S. McDonnell, George Mueller and K.S. Kleinknecht. But there are many lesser known names, as well. Would be interesting to know what role each person played, as each was important to the endeavor.

posted 01-21-2025 06:10 PM               

Don Arabian was in NASA test and evaluation for Gemini, then went on to become the head of the Apollo Mission Evaluation Room (MER).

posted 01-21-2025 06:53 PM               

This is the most signatures that I have seen altogether from the Gemini program, however, there are a few multi-signed photos and posters that I am aware of (and have owned) by NASA, the Martin Company, and McDonnell Aircraft Corporation. I'll see what I can dig up in this area and thanks so much for sharing!

posted 01-22-2025 03:25 AM               

The amount of pride and feeling of civil and patriotic duty towards their contributions is at the same level as the astronauts in the programs they supported.

I think these could be a powerful tool to promote STEM initiatives for students. Looking at all those signatures gives a tangible and realistic way to see the scale of how many people it takes to make one mission or program a success when you are dealing with getting things to orbit. I've donated stuff in the past to Brevard County for them to use in some of their schools' STEM programs.