Topic: Inscriptions left in/on spacecraft by the crew
LM-12 Member
Posts: 4257 From: Ontario, Canada Registered: Oct 2010
posted 12-05-2013 07:45 AM
This inscription was left inside the Apollo 11 Command Module near the sextant in the lower equipment bay:
Spacecraft 107, alias Apollo 11, alias "Columbia." The Best Ship to Come Down the Line. God Bless Her. Michael Collins, CMP
Robert Pearlman Editor
Posts: 55632 From: Houston, TX Registered: Nov 1999
posted 12-05-2013 07:57 AM
Michael Collins' inscription inside Columbia is further discussed as part of this topic describing the inscription left by the STS-132 crew inside space shuttle Atlantis.
LM-12 Member
Posts: 4257 From: Ontario, Canada Registered: Oct 2010
posted 12-05-2013 08:01 AM
This inscription on the Apollo 12 command module was signed by all three crew members:
Yankee Clipper sailed with Intrepid to The Ocean Of Storms, Moon November 14, 1969
mikej Member
Posts: 483 From: Germantown, WI USA Registered: Jan 2004
posted 12-26-2013 07:19 PM
I have a clearer shot of the Apollo 12 inscription on my website.
space1 Member
Posts: 970 From: Danville, Ohio Registered: Dec 2002
posted 12-27-2013 05:10 AM
This was not intended as an inscription, but it certainly serves as a testament to endurance.
This is part of a NASA post-flight inspection photo showing the Ground Elapsed Timer section of the Gemini VII control panel. Frank Borman and Jim Lovell have tabulated the completion of each day of their historic 14-day mission, with exclamations of relief and triumph at the end.
Unfortunately this sub-panel is inverted in the current display at National Air and Space Museum Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, with the Ground Elapsed Timer rotated to display correctly.
dabolton Member
Posts: 419 From: Seneca, IL, US Registered: Jan 2009
posted 12-27-2013 10:31 AM
The design and paint color in that photo looks so much like a US Navy ship.
Ken Havekotte Member
Posts: 4023 From: Merritt Island, Florida, Brevard Registered: Mar 2001
posted 12-27-2013 01:34 PM
Here is another, but for Apollo 7/CM-101; "Good Show, Wally Schirra (signed)."
LM-12 Member
Posts: 4257 From: Ontario, Canada Registered: Oct 2010
posted 06-03-2016 04:35 PM
Apollo-Soyuz Test Project cosmonauts Alexei Leonov and Valery Kubasov signed their Soyuz descent vehicle after landing in 1975.
Hard to see in the photo, but there is a label marked KEY in Russian and English on the bottom of the capsule. Other labels there in both languages include:
USSR
SPACECRAFT
PEOPLE INSIDE, HELP
TAKE THE KEY
OPEN HATCH
LM-12 Member
Posts: 4257 From: Ontario, Canada Registered: Oct 2010
posted 06-04-2016 08:38 PM
Gordon Cooper signed his Mercury 9 Atlas rocket and added "Launch This Way" with arrows pointing to the nose. Cal Fowler, a Mercury test conductor, signed below and added 'OK'.
I believe Cooper and Fowler signed on the "Project Mercury General Dynamics/Astronautics" sticker, the small white circle on the side of the Atlas.
Wally Schirra may have signed his Atlas launch vehicle also.
YankeeClipper Member
Posts: 644 From: Dublin, Ireland Registered: Mar 2011
posted 06-19-2016 08:47 AM
Two photos of astronaut Leroy "Gordo" Gordon Cooper, Jr. and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Launch Complex 14 launch manager Calvin "Cal" D. Fowler signing the Atlas rocket, which would launch Faith 7 into orbit. Cooper and Fowler were at the General Dynamics/Astronautics factory in San Diego, California, to accept the Atlas booster. Photos are from the private collection of Dr. Calvin "Cal" D. Fowler.
A press release confirms Cooper and Fowler's attendance, and Cooper's signing of the launch vehicle.
LM-12 Member
Posts: 4257 From: Ontario, Canada Registered: Oct 2010
posted 06-20-2016 09:49 AM
This MA-9 Atlas photo dated March 19, 1963 says the decal was also signed by Alan Shepard. Shepard was Cooper's backup.
Fowler signed the skin of the launch vehicle. Not sure if he signed the sticker also. Cooper signed both.
LM-12 Member
Posts: 4257 From: Ontario, Canada Registered: Oct 2010
posted 06-22-2016 10:49 AM
quote:Originally posted by LM-12: Apollo-Soyuz Test Project cosmonauts Alexei Leonov and Valery Kubasov signed their Soyuz descent vehicle after landing in 1975.
It looks like Leonov wrote an inscription above his name. Can anyone translate the word?
Lasv3 Member
Posts: 476 From: Bratislava, Slovakia Registered: Apr 2009
posted 06-22-2016 11:05 AM
It's "Spasibo!" meaning "Thanks!"
LM-12 Member
Posts: 4257 From: Ontario, Canada Registered: Oct 2010
posted 06-25-2016 10:41 PM
It seems the Apollo 12 crew signed and inscribed the attitude indicator instrument on the main display console in CM-108. The inscription reads "Yankee Clipper sailed with Intrepid to the Sea of Storms Moon November 14th 1969."
Pete Conrad shows the inscription on the attitude indicator during the transearth coast news conference on Flight Day 9. Looking for some footage of that.
CDR: We wrote a little inscription over the FPAI (sic) and signed it -
CC: Roger. Try focusing in just a little bit. We can almost read it. It says "Yankee Clipper with Intrepid in tow -
CDR: No, it says, "Yankee Clipper sailed with Intrepid to the Sea of Storms, Moon, November 14, 1969."
CC: Roger; we can read it now. Thanks.
CC: And we copy the signatures.
CDR: And that's it, Jerry, from Apollo 12, good night. We'll be talking to you tomorrow morning.
The crew signatures on the attitude indicator can be seen briefly in some of the 16mm onboard film footage.
The inscription on the outside of the command module below window number 2 (mentioned earlier in the thread) has the same wording as the interior inscription, except it says "Ocean" instead of "Sea" of Storms.
LM-12 Member
Posts: 4257 From: Ontario, Canada Registered: Oct 2010
posted 09-09-2016 01:07 PM
The caption for Expedition 48 photo NHQ201607020006 seems a bit confusing. Kate Rubins (who launched on Soyuz MS-01) is signing a section of the Soyuz TMA-20M booster after it launched? I don't get it.
NASA astronaut Kate Rubins signs a section of soyuz TMA-20M booster that carried Expedition 47 crewmembers to space back in March of 2016 as part of her prelaunch activities with Russian cosmonaut Anatoly Ivanishin of Roscosmos, and Japanese astronaut Takuya Onishi of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) Saturday, July 2, 2016 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome Museum in Kazakhstan. Rubins, Ivanishin, and Onishi will launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan the morning of July 7, Kazakh time (July 6 Eastern time.) All three will spend approximately four months on the orbital complex, returning to Earth in October.
Robert Pearlman Editor
Posts: 55632 From: Houston, TX Registered: Nov 1999
posted 09-09-2016 01:27 PM
The fairing was recovered as debris after it launched and fell to the ground.
The booster had been specially marked for the 55th anniversary of Gagarin's flight, hence the interest to retrieve it as an artifact and have it signed.
LM-12 Member
Posts: 4257 From: Ontario, Canada Registered: Oct 2010
posted 09-29-2016 06:13 AM
quote:Originally posted by LM-12: This inscription was left inside the Apollo 11 Command Module...
When did Michael Collins write the command module inscription?
The book "After Sputnik" says he wrote the note in the CM on the USS Hornet on the way to Hawaii. However, John Hirasaki says in the March 2009 Oral History transcript that Collins signed the spacecraft in the LRL:
I do recall them coming into the spacecraft area, and [Michael] Collins had signed the spacecraft because he was in Command Module Pilot. He did put his signature on it while it was inside the Lunar Receiving Lab.
aneedell Member
Posts: 70 From: Washington, DC Registered: Mar 2004
posted 10-01-2016 12:15 PM
If you look carefully at the inscription you can see that it has been overwritten at least once. I've spoken to Mike Collins about his recollections and John's comment. He does recall reentering the command module thinking that his original inscription needed to be enhanced.
It may well be that both recollections are correct.
------------------ Allan Needell Space History Division National Air and Space Museum
LM-12 Member
Posts: 4257 From: Ontario, Canada Registered: Oct 2010
posted 10-16-2016 01:10 PM
In the Gemini 4 spacecraft, there is an "American Eagle" tag on Ed White's FDI (Flight Director Indicator) on the instrument panel. Was it put there by the crew?
The tag is not seen on the FDI in a launch day photo (KSC-65C-3507) taken at Pad 19 in the White Room shortly before the crew entered the Gemini 4 spacecraft.
YankeeClipper Member
Posts: 644 From: Dublin, Ireland Registered: Mar 2011
posted 02-20-2017 08:32 PM
quote:Originally posted by LM-12: When did Michael Collins write the command module inscription?
Michael Collins gave the following account on p. 29 of LIFE Magazine, August 22, 1969:
I prefer people to machinery but there are times when cold, inanimate objects deserve the affection, regard and esteem usually reserved for flesh and blood. July 24 was such a time, and Columbia such a machine. She had taken us across a hostile, black void to an alien planet, then back again, serenely depositing us almost affectionately on the bluest of blue waters. It didn't seem just to leave her scorched carcass unceremoniously, gutted and unattended, without somehow trying to mark her, to set her apart.
That night on the Hornet I clambered back on board and, ballpoint in hand, stood navigation station, staring at the blank expanse of gray bulkhead. I couldn't think of words eloquent enough to describe my emotions but finally I wrote:
"Spacecraft 107, alias Apollo 11, alias Columbia. The best ship to come down the line. God bless her."
This story was retold in "Carrying the Fire," but there it is written that it occurred on the second evening aboard USS Hornet.
LM-12 Member
Posts: 4257 From: Ontario, Canada Registered: Oct 2010
posted 01-23-2019 01:37 PM
Photo S-65-45889 shows the Gemini 5 spacecraft instrument panel with Gordon Cooper's covered wagon drawing.
Here is some great footage of the post-recovery inspection of the Gemini 5 spacecraft on the USS Lake Champlain.
LM-12 Member
Posts: 4257 From: Ontario, Canada Registered: Oct 2010
posted 12-11-2025 12:07 AM
This is from the Apollo 13 mission transcripts during the translunar coast:
CC: Apollo 13, Houston.
CDR: Go ahead, Houston.
CC: Okay. Looking at our computations back here, we show you about 55 450 and going out rapidly now.
CDR: Well, Hal might be a little bit off.
CC: Okay.
CMP: We have a sign underneath our LEB DSKY that "my name is Hal."
CC: I can't imagine how that got there. Just remember, you have to be nice to Hal.
posted 12-05-2013 07:45 AM
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