posted 06-28-2026 09:20 AM               

Space Cover 862: Apollo 11: 50 State Tour

The space cover this week is a souvenir from the second significant journey of the Apollo 11 command module Columbia. Beginning in April 1970 and continuing through May 1971, Columbia and a selection of Apollo artifacts embarked on a tour of the United States, stopping in each of the 50 state capitols and Washington D.C.

Almost 56 years to the day, the cover this week was postmarked June 26, 1970 on the first day of the exhibit's stop in Pierre, South Dakota, the eleventh stop on the tour. The display was setup in front of the state capitol building in Pierre from June 26 through June 29. The cover has a black printed cachet of the Apollo 11 mission emblem along with text describing the nationwide tour. The cover is signed by incoming Governor Richard "Dick" Kneip who was elected on June 2, 1970.

The map below shows a summary of the route, with the mainland tour starting and ending in California before heading to Hawaii and finally Alaska. Due to the long sea voyage out to Hawaii it was decided to extend the exhibit schedule to 11 days, setting the record for visitors at any stop with approximately 135,000 visitors attending in Honolulu. Alaska additionally had a large showing due to the Governor requesting the display be located in the more populous and centrally located Anchorage instead of the state's capitol of Juneau. NASA created a summary report of the entire tour containing more details about the events and people participating at each location.

The exhibit was transported in a specially designed enclosed trailer with access on both sides to maximize the amount of visitors that could view the artifacts. On display alongside Columbia were a moon rock collected during the mission and Buzz Aldrin's spacesuit glove, among other Apollo 11 items listed on the diagram below.

This cover and others like it made for different stops on the tour were created by Ross Wetreich of Valley Stream, New York. His return address is rubber stamped in the lower right corner of the covers. All those that I have collected contain the same mission emblem and text cachet. Covers shared below are from the 30th stop in Boston, Massachusetts from November 5-11 and the 43rd stop in Jackson, Mississippi from February 5-9, 1971. An interesting note, during the exhibit's time in Jackson, Apollo 14 landed on the lunar surface (Feb 5) and splashed down in the Pacific (Feb 9), I'm sure this was quite a special treat for those visiting during this time.

Throughout the years of collecting, I've only come across a few of these covers, but I certainly imagine that Ross attempted to get them from all of the 51 locations. Was he successful? Do you have any of these covers in your collection? Does anyone know approximately how many were made per city? Would love to see the covers you have and which cities/dates they were posted on. If you have extras or duplicates and would like to make trade for something else let me know. Happy hunting!

posted 06-28-2026 10:31 AM               

After a few years of collecting I thought I knew just about every specialist niche of astrophilately, space covers, and rocket mail collecting up until the end of the Space Race years that there was to know!

But this is entirely new to me. And that's despite the fact I am an eager collector of previous space capsule tours such as Friendship7's and post-mission visits by space crews.

posted 07-01-2026 03:45 PM               

Unlike the Apollo 11 tour that involved a spacecraft, Columbia, the post-Apollo-Soyuz Test Project US and Soviet Goodwill Tour involved no spacecraft. It involved only the three Apollo astronauts and the two Soyuz cosmonauts.

The Apollo and Soyuz crew members began their tour in the Soviet Union at Star City (and probably visited other Soviet cities) and then visited at least 12 US cities.

Unlike the professionally done Apollo 11 tour covers that Jeff has presented, the covers I have for twelve of the US tour cities were done by just an amateur cover creator, me. It was an enjoyable project that resulted in five covers from each US city.

I've presented eight covers pertaining to the US and Soviet ASTP tours, including covers from Star City, USSR, where the entire tour began; Washington, DC, where the US tour began; Chicago, IL; San Francisco, CA; Sausalito, CA; and New York City, NY.

posted 07-01-2026 06:59 PM               

There was an opportunity to acquire a complete set of the covers that came from an Orlando (a long-time KSC-NASA worker friend) about 10 or so years ago.

What was so amazing about the collection was that each one of the 50 state capitol covers that I recall were actually autographed by each state capitol governor. I recall the Sacramento, CA, posted cover had been signed by then-Governor Ronald Reagan and I believe there was another state capitol cover signed by a future U.S. president as well.

posted 07-09-2026 09:29 AM               

It has been ten days since I learnt of the existence of this series of covers {again, Apollo 11 not ASTP}, and I have so far managed to acquire four of them: Charleston, West Virginia [24]; Montpelier, Vermont [27]; Concord, New Hampshire [29]; and Santa Fe, New Mexico [48].

Unlike Ken's set none of mine have been signed by any state governors. And also two of them have inappropriate stamps - 300th anniversary of South Carolina on Vermont's cover, and Great Northwest Fort Snelling stamp on New Hampshire's cover. But hey-ho!