posted 03-24-2025 10:52 AM               

USAF Aerospace nurse, Dee O'Hara, served as the Mercury astronaut's chief nurse, with her career spanning from Mercury to ASTP. She was well-known at the time and even was a contestant on the TV panel show, "What's my Line" in 1962.

This is an unofficial first day cover of the Von Karman commemorative stamp, that pictures a V-2 rocket launch. That's a very appropriate stamp with a V-2 rocket in its design, as the stamp is on a cover that is autographed by eight members of Wernher von Braun's rocket team who were directly involved with the V-2's design and testing and subsequent use in WWII.

However, these eight German rocket scientists were all later directly involved in the US space and rocket program and contributed to its success.

Albert Schuler, one of the eight rocket experts who signed this cover, passed away in 1998, along with two others all in the same week, as stated in the article with the cover. The Explorer 1 anniversary cover is signed by Max Nowak, one of the three mentioned in the article.

This cover signed by eight rocket pioneers required eight separate mailings out and eight mailings back, with it traveling to Huntsville, AL seven times and to Santa Clara, CA once.

In 1978, NASA announced the selection of thirty-five astronaut candidates who would begin their training to fly on NASA's new space shuttle. The cover was canceled in Houston on the day that the "Thirty-five New Guys" reported to Johnson Space Center to begin their Space Shuttle careers.

The autographs on the cover are of the members of the astronaut selection board that selected the 35 new astronaut candidates. Six are flown astronauts, including John Young, but the others are mostly in NASA management and not widely known (two I can't identify):

• George Abbey: later JSC Director
  
• Carolyn Huntoon: later first female JSC Director
  
• R.O. Piland: Director of Engineering and Development
  
• Jack Lister: NASA manager
  
• James Trainor: Goddard SFC Chief Scientist

Three more signatures have been identified as those of Joseph D. Atkinson, Martin L. Raines and Duane L. Ross. So represented here are signatures of 13 of the 15 Astronaut Selection Board members for Group 8. Not signing are Glenn Lunney and Duane L. Ross.

posted 03-25-2025 06:34 PM               

The STS-8 tile techs autographed cover is a good one! I've always liked that particular cover of yours. I would think all of the autographs were applied at one time?

Here is my Dee O'Hara autograph on an Apollo 13 ONC cover with a rare April 14, 1970 cancel.

posted 03-25-2025 08:23 PM               

And a nice photo she and John Glenn kindy signed for me about 15 years ago. And then a photo she inscribed for my daughter at the Spacefest in 2021.

posted 04-02-2025 05:22 PM               

The multi-signed Peenemunde Veterans cover is one of a few ever-seen by this many old timers of the original German/U.S. rocket development team that had been headed by Dr. Wernher von Braun. It's a well-done piece Bob that you should be proud of with all well-placed and spaced signatures in-between each other.

I have never seen your 13-member autographed first shuttle astronauts' selection board cover in 1978 that included John Young, Deke Slayton, Vance Brand, and with three scientist astronauts. Never seen such a cover like this before.

posted 04-03-2025 06:31 PM               

This thread is intended to highlight autographs of lesser-known space personnel, but they all did their part in America's success in space.

The autographs presented below of German rocket pioneers do include mostly lesser-known space personnel, but with several significant exceptions.

For example, this Wernher von Braun tribute cover is signed by three top NASA leaders, including Kurt Debus, KSC Director; Arthur Rudolph, Saturn V Manager at Marshall Space Flight Center, AL; and Eberhard Rees, MSFC Director.

This postcard pictures Wernher von Braun in his office in Huntsville, along with a Redstone rocket launch cover signed by von Braun. The cover marks the final Redstone test flight before Alan Shepard's Mercury-Redstone 3 sub-orbital flight.

While all of the von Braun Rocket Team members from Peenemuende, Germany, contributed much to the US rocket and space programs, they certainly had a dark side.

Arthur Rudolph, and the entire German rocket team, came to the US as part of Operation Paperclip after World War II. But previously during WWII, Rudolph was directly involved in the forced use of slave laborers to manufacture V-2 rockets that were used against civilian populations.

Sadly, after his distinguished career in the US, he fled the the country to avoid a possible war crimes indictment for his involvement in the use of slave laborers to produce weapons of war against civilians.

Dr. Rudolph nicely signed the top cover that marks the first launch of the Saturn V rocket on Apollo 4. As he noted, it occurred on his 61st birthday.

Also presented here on seven covers are autographs of 56 of the Original 118 von Braun rocket pioneers from Peenemuende (Including 8 autographs on the signed cover shown previously above).

These 56 autographs were all obtained one-at-a-time with very many out-and-back mailings. Along with each multi-signed cover sent out, I also included another cover for each to sign individually, as the Nowak signed cover previously shown above illustrates.

Of note is that I had plenty of help with addresses, as many of the rocket pioneers I obtained autographs from were very kind and helpful in providing addresses of other pioneers I had no addresses for. Also many interesting notes and letters resulted from this autograph endeavor.