Orbit issue 92 (January 2012)
40
1
description
ORBIT is the official quarterly publication of The Astro Space Stamp Society, full of illustrations and informative space stamp and space cover articles, postal auctions, space news, and a new issues guide.
Transcript of Orbit issue 92 (January 2012)
1
2
ORBIT
ADVERTISING RATES We invite advertisers to use ORBIT to reach Astro-Philatelic enthusiasts worldwide. If readers have a
commercial source they think they would like others to benefit from please let the firm know of us:. Rates are: Full page Display - £24 Half Page - £12 Quarter Page
£6 One eighth of a page - £4. Camera ready copy required with remittance by the above stated copy deadline for inclusion in our next
edition.
© Copyright 2012 The Astro Space Stamp Society. No article contained herein may be reproduced without prior
permission of the Author and the Society.
Editorial
Copy Deadline for the March 2012 issue is February 14th by which time all material intended for publication should be
with the Editor.
ANNUAL SUBSCRIPTION RATES Members in UK—£15
in Europe (EU and non-EU) - €30
Elsewhere - $45 equivalent
Juniors (under 18) £6.50
ASSS website at URL: http://www.astrospacestampsociety.com/
ISSN 0953 1599 THE JOURNAL OF THE ASTRO SPACE
STAMP SOCIETY Issue No 92 January 2012
Patron:
Cosmonaut Georgi Grechko, Hero of the Soviet Union
COMMITTEE Chair :
Margaret Morris, 55 Canniesburn Drive, Bearsden, Glasgow, Scotland G61 1RX (E-mail: [email protected])
Hon. Secretary: Brian J.Lockyer, 21, Exford Close,Weston-Super-Mare,
Somerset BS23 4RE (E-mail : [email protected])
Compiler of Checklist / Hon Treasurer / Postal Packet Organiser
Harvey Duncan,16, Begg Avenue, Falkirk, Scotland FK1 5DL (E-mail: [email protected])
)
Orbit : Editor Jeff Dugdale, Glebe Cottage, Speymouth, Mosstodloch, Moray.
Scotland IV32 7LE (E-mail: [email protected])
Webmaster Derek Clarke, 36 Cherryfield Road, Walkington,
Dublin 12 (E-mail: [email protected])
Postal Auction Organiser: David Saunders, 42 Burnet Road, Bradwell,
Great Yarmouth. NR31 8SL. (E-mail [email protected])
Overseas Representatives:
Australia: Charles Bromser, 37 Bridport Street, Melbourne 3205. Belgium : Jűrgen P. Esders, Rue Paul Devigne 21-27, Boite 6, 1030 Bruxelles
Eire:Derek Clarke, 36 Cherryfield Rd, Walkinstown. Dublin 12. France: Jean-Louis Lafon, 23 Rue de Mercantour, 78310 Maurepas
Russia: Mikhail Vorobyov, 31-12 Krupskaya Str, Kostroma United States: Dr Ben Ramkissoon, Linda Valley Villa #236
11075 Benton Street Loma Linda CA 92354-3182
Life Members: UK - Harvey Duncan, George Spiteri, Ian Ridpath, Margaret Morris,
Michael Packham, Dr W.R. Withey, Jillian Wood. Derek Clarke (Eire,) Charles Bromser (Australia.) Tom Baughn (U.S.A.,) Ross Smith
(Australia,) Vincent Leung Wing Sing (Hong Kong.) Mohammed K.Safdar (Saudi Arabia)
Here’s to Harvey !
As the New Year opens the thoughts and prayers of your committee are with our venerable Treasurer Harvey Duncan who is facing a major health challenge. Not having bothered the doctors much in his 76 years to date, Harvey has spent much of the past two months in their care or under their observation and he has some further treatments to endure in the opening weeks of 2012. To this end, our Chairman Margaret Morris and I have been encouraging him to let us take away some of the burden of his duties as Treasurer in the short term so hobby issues don’t have to bother him when he has bigger concerns. Let us hope that as the year progresses Harvey rises to the challenge and is soon fit enough to return to his ASSS duties and to enjoy his beloved collections, in which so many of us find joy (and sometimes) solace. May I wish you and yours all the best for 2012 !
3
ORBIT ORBIT
MA6— Mercury 7 20 Feb 1962
Reg Turnill succinctly summarises the significance of this flight in his Observer’s Book of Manned Spaceflight (Warne 1972)…. “By the time Friendship 7 and Glenn splashed down safely in the vicinity of Grand Turk Island, both had become household words. For two months, ten separate delays had jeopardized America’s first orbital flight, but at last the mission succeeded. Boosted into space atop a new more powerful rocket, the Atlas, Glenn circled the earth three times. A telemetry fault started a major alarmed by indicating that the heatshield was no longer locked in position. A difference of opinion on the ground was resolved with the decision to order Glenn not to jettison the retropack before re-entry; it was hoped that this would help retain the heatshield in position. “As the retropack burned and broke away, Glenn commented, “That’s a real fireball outside”. But all was well and Friendship 7 splashed into the Atlantic 64.5 km short of the predicted area. The astronaut’s only injury was knuckle abrasion when he punched the detonator to blow off the hatch after Friendship 7 with Glenn still inside had been hoisted on the deck of the recovery destroyer. Recovery forces totalled 224 ships, 126 aircraft and 26,000 personnel. “His hero’s reception was enormous with ticket-tape parades in New York and in Washington, where he also made a special address to Congress, later becoming deeply involved in politics himself”. Checklist opposite as issued with Orbit #43 in October 1999 (Year and SG numbers given) More stamps telling the story of the flight shown overleaf.
Czechoslovakia 27.4.64 Paraguay 3.3.77
Turks & C 20.6.72
Upper Volta
12.9.73
Turks & C 21.2.72
4
ORBIT
Mercury 7 some International Issues
L-r Turks & C 21.2.72
Turks & C 20.6.72
Maldives 15.11.73
L-r Turks & C 20.6.72
Ascension 30.3.87
Turks & C 21.2.72
L-r Hadhramaut 5.10.67
Turks & C 21.2.72
Yemen Kingdom 70
John H Glenn Jr Glenn was born on July 18th 1921 in Cambridge, Ohio so at the time of writing is 90 years old. With a B.Sc in engineering he entered the Naval Aviation Cadet Program and was commissioned in the Marine Corps in 1943. During WWII he flew 59 combat missions and 63 missions with the Marine Fighter Squadron in Korea. In the last nine days of fighting in Korea Glenn downed three MiG fighters along the Yalu River. He then attended Test Pilot School at Patuxent River, Maryland. In the summer of 1957 he set a transcontinental speed record from Los Angles to New York, averaging supersonic speed over nearly three and a half hours. He was assigned to the NASA Manned Spacecraft Center on April 1959 and after his Mercury flight he worked on Project Apollo but resigned in 1964. After retirement from the Marine Corps he was a business executive until his election to the US Senate in November 1974 as a Democrat representing the state of his birth and serving for almost 25 years. Aged 77 he became the oldest person to fly in space, as a member of the STS-95/Discovery crew in October 1998.
Romania 15.1.64
Ajman 16.3.71
Hungary 27.10.62
5
ORBIT
Mercury 7 Some unusual related covers from your editor’s collection
6
ORBIT
The Prague Astronomical Orloj, one of the most admired technical monuments in the world, celebrated its 600th anniversary in 2010. The Czech Post authority commemorated the event by issuing in June 2010 an attractive stamp of 21 Kč (Czech Crones).
This is not the first time the Orloj has been featured on a stamp. In 1978 the Prague Clock was the subject chosen for an entire set of five stamps issued, together with one souvenir sheet, by the former Czechoslovakia to celebrate the International Philatelic Exhibition "Praga 1978".
In 1987 the astronomical-mathematical clock was chosen once again as a symbol to celebrate the 125th anniversary of the Czech Mathematics and Physics Union.
The pride of the Old Town Hall was designed by Mikuláš of Kadaň in 1410 and inaugurated on October 14th. In a multicultural city, which Prague was at that time, the new astronomical clock made it possible for everyone to read the time using alternate methods. Having encountered its fair share of hardships, the astronomical clock’s most recent great misfortune came at the very end of the Second World War when the Old Town Hall was bombed out. It had been successfully repaired and improved several times throughout the centuries and, with about three quarters of the old original parts operational, it is still functional and is thus the most well preserved of its kind across the globe. The clock’s key component is its astrolabe, an ancient
astronomical instrument used by mariners since the Middle Ages to determine the positions of the stars, the Sun and the Moon. For centuries, before the sextant was invented, it was the main tool for orienting navigators and it served for determining local time through knowedge of the longitude, or vice versa. The “multiple” clock consists of a stationary disk in the centre and two
Prague’s Astronomical Orloj—600 years old by Umberto Cavallaro
A version of this article first
appeared in Ad Astra the online
journal of our Italian sister
society for Oct-Dec 2010 as is reproduced by
kind permission of its editor
Umberto Cavallaro.
7
ORBIT
independently rotating disks: the inner zodiacal ring and the outer ring with numerals in Gothic style. In the background of the stationary disk, the blue circle in the centre represents the Earth, while the upper blue is the portion of the sky which is above the horizon; the beige and brown areas in the stamp (in the reality such areas are respectively red and black) indicate portions of the sky below the horizon. During the daytime, the sun (highlighted in the stamp issued in 2010) sits over the blue part of the background and at night it sits over the black. During dawn or dusk, the mechanical sun is positioned over the red part of the background. A pointer with a golden hand and a sun moving around the zodiacal circle show together the time in three different ways: - on the golden Roman numbers at the outer edge of blue circle, the pointer indicates time in local Prague time, or Central European Time. - against the external ring, with the gothic numerals, it indicates the Bohemian hours (also known as Italian Time), used in the Middle Ages in Bohemia, the country to which Prague belonged, and in Northern Italy. The time of day and night is divided in 24 hours with 24 indicating the time of sunset, which varies during the year from as early as 16:00 in winter to 20:16 in summer. To adjust the time so that 24 always coincides with sunset, the outer ring rotates slowly to the right during one half of the year (when the days become longer) and in the other half it rotates to the left (when the days becomes shorter). The Prague Astronomical Clock is the only one measuring the Bohemian time.
- Curved golden lines divide the blue part of dial into 12 parts and are marks for unequal hours. These hours are defined as 1/12 of the time between sunrise and sunset, and vary as the days grow longer or shorter during the year. The position of the golden sun over the curved golden lines indicates the time in unequal hours or sidereal time. Inside the stationary circle lies another smaller movable circle placed eccentrically in the clock, marked with the signs of the zodiac, shown in anticlockwise order. It rotates once in a year around its own centre and on its own in one day around the centre of the clock. During this combined motion the little sun rolls on the border of the zodiacal ring, shifting on the hand. At the top, behind two shutters, a kind of puppet show from the 19th century presents at each hour “The Walk of the Apostles". The first stamp (40 haléřů) in the set issued in 1978 represents St. Peter, the first Apostle, holding a key in his hand. In the bottom part of the Orloj, below the astronomical dial, a circular calendar was added in 1870, with month symbols depicted by the Bohemian artist Josef Manes, the originals of which can be seen today on the sides of the stairway of the Prague Museum of History. The Calendar dial is represented as a whole in the complementary souvenir sheet issued in 1978 (above left). The calendar dial consists of twelve medallions representing the months. In the centre lies the Coat of arms of Prague, which is reproduced in the 2 Crones stamp issued in 1978. Round the coat of arms lie the twelve medallions representing zodiacal signs. The 3,60 Crones stamp represents Libra (September-October), while the 3 Crones value reproduces the grape harvest associated with the next month.
This artwork had already inspired stamps of the former Czechoslovakia. As early as 1936 a set of 3 stamps already reproduced the scene associated with the zodiacal sign of Aquarius (January-February) Acknowledgements Thanks to Simona Guidi, careful and diligent collector of Czech philately, who notified me of the 1936 stamp set and provided the relevant illustrations.
8
ORBIT
Andriyan Gregoryevitch Nikolayev (1929-2004)
Planned Launch in Response to Glenn’s flight
Andriyan Gregoryevitch Nikolayev is probably one of the least known early cosmonauts, surmises John Beenen. With his gloomy and dark appearance he was less macho than Gagarin, Titov, Popovich and Shonin. He was born on September 5th 1929 in Shorshely, a little village in the Wolga republic Chuvashia, between Perm and Moscow and in the neighbourhood of Nizhniy Novgorod. Even when quite young he was fond of flying, but he started his career as a forest worker. During his military service he showed a disposition for the air force. But also there he started in a different specialism, becoming a radio operator and air gunner. After a study of four years he received his beret. He appeared to be very stable under stress, for example when he did not jump from a stalled jet, but landed neatly at the air strip. How he came to join the cosmonaut corps is mentioned nowhere, but it is a fact that he was one of the first twenty cosmonauts selected. Once there he attracted attention by his icy coolness and stamina. As such he managed to maintain an endurance test in complete isolation for four days, which presented him with the title ‘Man of iron’. Possibly because of this he made it to the last six remaining cosmonauts: Gagarin, Titov, Popovich, Nelyubov and Bykovsky. As we know from earlier articles I have written for Orbit Nelyubov was dismissed from this group for insubordination, misbehaviour and alcohol abuse. In any case Nikolayev was chosen for the first prolonged flight. However, this was after long discussion as the staff of the Soviet Air force judged a flight of two days as long as they only had experience with a flight of a day. The head of the cosmonaut selection, Korolev, pleaded for a flight of three days. In the beginning the flight was scheduled in December/January but due of bad weather it was postponed, then planned for March 1962. Then the boss of the General Air force staff, Ustinov, ordered, in spite of some unsolved problems, a flight within 10 days as a response to the flight of John Glenn. Korolev was furious and criticized the bad management and co-ordination within the Soviet staff. Still Nikolayev and Bykovsky were selected for these flights with Nelyubov and Popovich as their back-ups. Then a spy satellite, Zenit, failed and the programme had to be delayed. Further delay was caused by the failure of Cosmos 4 and also with destruction of Zenit 2 at 300 m above the launching platform
which was damaged, so the flight of Vostok 3 had to be postponed again to August. Korolev still was in favour for a flight of three days and was supported in this by Khrushchev. The head of the cosmonauts, Kamanin, wanted a flight of two days. Shortly before the final launch Vostok 4 failed a visual test and the ejection installation could not been put back in time, thus leaving Popovich too little time to finish his programme
Furthermore, it meant Nikolayev would have to sit in his cabin for one hour for which was no time, but later it still showed to be possible. On August 11th 1962 and under the name Sokol (Falcon) the nearly 5 tons Vostok 3 was launched and one day later in the 15th orbit of Vostok 3 Vostok 4 with Pavel Popovich as pilot.
As they flew nearly the same orbit (Vostok 3: 166-218 km; Vostok 4: 159-211 km) Nikolayev was able to detect the Vostok 4 in a distance of about 5 km. Contemporary magazines and newspapers speculated intensively about the meaning of the double flight and the possibility of docking. But that was not the purpose as a docking installation was not present. The Soviets only wanted to be in the lead over the Americans in time of
endurance and the study of effects on it and to minimize the impact of Glenn’s flight. During the flight there again were problems with the temperature of Nikoyaev’s space suit which dropped to 11°C and with a humidity of 35%. As the flights themselves ran smoothly everyone wanted to them to last for 4 days instead of three,
with only Kamanin remaining worried about the physical condition of the cosmonauts and the roughness of the landing site in that case. Finally it was agreed that the flight should last 4 days should the cosmonauts also agree, which of course they did. Popovich was in favour of an additional day, but after a long discussion it was deemed not possible. Hence, both cosmonauts landed on the same day, the 15th 6
minutes one after the other at the same area. The flight of Vostok 3 lasted for 3,93 days (93 h, 25 min) in which it orbited Earth 65 times. The flight of Popovich lasted 49 orbits and 71 hours. At the debriefing Nikolayev complained about some heavy shaking at the separation of the fuel tanks and the inferior communication connections. After that they celebrated with a party spoiling the medical tests of the
subsequent day ! The cosmonauts went for a PR tour; Nikolayev to Indonesia, which caused a rumour at the highest level then the training sessions were resumed. On November 3rd 1963 Nikolayev, the only bachelor of the cosmonaut group, married one of the female cosmonauts, Valentine Tereshkova of Vostok 6. The marriage was largely favoured by President Khrushchev who saw an excellent opportunity for a PR stunt. What started as a joke became reality, but the couple was not really in love.
Concluded on page 13
9
ORBIT
The Naming of Craters : Venus
Ladies Only—almost !
Text and chart below ex Philip’s Atlas of the Universe (Ed Patrick Moore 1999)
Named after the Roman goddess of love, Venus has two major upland areas Aphrodite Terra and Ishtar Terra, named respectively after Greek and Babylonian goddesses. The Greek love goddess Aphrodite, according to legend, was born when Uranus was castrated by his son Cronus, who threw the severed genitals into the ocean which began to churn and from the “aphros” i.e. sea foam arose Aphrodite, as in the famous painting by Botticelli The Birth of Venus (1486) referenced on this 1979 Cyprus stamp and on Cyprus 1982 showing Titian’s treatment of the same subject in his Venus Anadyomene (c 1520) “Venus arising from the sea”. Ishtar, whose statue is shown on Syria 1979, is
the Babylonian goddess of fertility, whose cult was first recorded in Erech and then spread as far as Greece, as “Ashtart”. Ishtar’s story has similarities to the mythology of Demeter descending into Hades to rescue her daughter Persephone for when Ishtar visits Hades nothing grows on Earth—an explanation for the fertile and barren seasons of the year.
Sole male interloper, James Clerk Maxwell (1831-79) was a Scottish physicist, Professor of Physics and Astronomy at King’s College, London, whose book Electricity and Magnetism has been considered the finest single achievement by a scientific genius. (San Marino 1990 and Nicaragua 1971).
10
ORBIT ORBIT
Guinevere, legendary queen of King Arthur
on Guernsey Alderney 2006
Surface area maps taken from Universe
(Ed Martin Rees) Dorling Kindersley 2005
Some of Venus’s features are named after relatively obscure women, e.g. Lada Terra after a Slavic goddess of beauty and health and Sacajawea Plateau after an Eighteenth
Century Shoshoni Indian interpreter
Louisa Alcott (1832-88) American author on
USA 1940
Thetis, Greek goddess of water and a nereid like her mother
Doris on Cyprus 1989
Edith Stein (1891-1942) German Roman Catholic
philosopher on West Germany 1983
Anna Pavlova (1881-1931)prima ballerina assoluta
on Australia 2009
Lakshmi, Hindu goddess, embodiment of beauty and
grace on 2010 US private post
Leda, girl famously abducted by Greek supreme god Zeus
disguised as a swan on Cyprus 1989
Artemis Greek goddess of hunting and
the wilderness on Greece 1986
Right Cleopatra (69-30 BC) last pharaoh of Ancient Egypt
Depicted on Mali 1984
Far right, Aino a woman in the Finnish national epic the
Kalevala who drowned herself suicide to avoid marriage to an
old man on Finland 1997
11
ORBIT
Diana, Roman goddess of the hunt, depicted here in a painting by Francois Boucher
on France 1970
Atalanta, a fierce huntress The story of Meleager and
Atalanta in a painting by Jacob Jordaens on Paraguay 1977
Juno Roman counterpart to the
Greek Hera, queen of Olympian deities, here on Greece 1986
Sappho, (c620-570 BC) Ancient Greek poet depicted on West
Germany 1976
Colette, French novelist (1873-1954) best known for Gigi
On Monaco 1980
Lisa Meitner (1878-1968) Austrian born physicist, part of
the team which discovered nuclear fission on Austria 1968
Helen, Greek Queen - Helen of Troy is abducted by Paris - the casus belli of the Trojan War on Greece 1983
Right Sedna, Inuit goddess of the sea and marine animals on
Canada 1980
Far right, the legendary ship Mary Celeste discovered
unmanned in the Atlantic in 1872
Other features are named after Sapas—Canaan ite sun goddess, Ovda—Russian forest goddess, Miralaidji—Aborigine fertility goddess, botanist
Margaretta Riley and Emily Balch American Nobel Laureate
Jane Addams (1860-1935) American social reformer on
USA 1940
12
ORBIT
By Ian Ridpath
In October 2011 Royal Mail
issued twelve stamps forming the
first part of an alphabetical tour
of the UK in which each letter of
the alphabet was represented by
a location in the UK. For the letter
J they chose the Jodrell Bank
radio observatory in Cheshire,
illustrated with a photograph by
Charlie Waite of the great 250-ft (76-m) Lovell Telescope
towering above local farmhouses.
This is the third time the Jodrell Bank radio telescope has
been seen on a GB stamp, and its involvement goes back to
the very start. It was the subject of the first-ever GB astro
stamp, released in 1966 as part of a set saluting British
technology. The Jodrell Bank stamp was the lowest-value
member of the set, face
value four old pence and
printed in black on a lemon-
yellow background. On my
website of British astro
stamps I describe it as “drab,
poorly reproduced and unimpressive”. The other three
stamps in the set showed British motor cars, the SRN6
hovercraft and the Windscale reactor. Of these four
examples of British technology, it has to be said that the
Jodrell Bank dish has lasted the best.
At that time, the big dish was simply known as the Mark I
radio telescope. The name Lovell Telescope was applied to it
on its 30th birthday in 1987, in honour of the observatory’s
founder, Sir Bernard Lovell.
It appeared for a second time on a Royal Mail stamp in 1990
as part of a fascinating set of four issued to commemorate
the 200th anniversary of Armagh Observatory in Northern
Ireland and the centenary of the
British Astronomical Association.
The Jodrell Bank radio telescope
is on the left of the 22p stamp,
with the Armagh Observatory at
the centre and the William
Herschel optical reflector on La
Palma on the other side. All four
stamps in this astronomy set were intricate and cleverly
designed.
For its era, the great Jodrell Bank dish was a daring and
innovative construction, and immediately became one of
the icons of space-age technology. Over the years, various
other countries have depicted the dish on their stamps,
usually without identifying it, but in each case its distinctive
design is unmistakable. I have found six examples, which I
show on my website at http://www.ianridpath.com/
stamps/jodrell.htm, and I would be pleased to hear of any
others that I might have missed.
The first nation to
show it was Haiti in
1958 in a set marking
the International
Geophysical Year
(IGY). It appeared on
two different values of the set, using the same rather crude
drawing but with different face values and colouring. This is
the earliest representation of the Jodrell Bank dish on
stamps.
Seven years later, in 1965, Hungary
depicted it on one of a nine-value set
commemorating the International
Quiet Sun Year. The IQSY was held at
a time of low solar activity, unlike the
IGY which coincided with solar
maximum. On this Hungarian stamp,
an accurate drawing of the telescope is seen beneath a
simple star chart of the northern sky.
Ascension Island
illustrated the Jodrell Bank
dish on one stamp of a
1971 set depicting the
evolution of space travel,
although they seemed to
confuse its role in radio astronomy with that of satellite
tracking and communications. The wording on this stamp
calls it the world’s largest radio telescope, which was not
strictly true. It was at that time still the world’s largest fully
steerable radio telescope, but in sheer size it had been
overtaken in 1963 by the 305-m dish at Arecibo in Puerto
Rico. The Arecibo dish is not steerable, though.
NEW JODRELL BANK STAMP FROM ROYAL MAIL
13
ORBIT
In 1986 the Caribbean island of
Barbuda included the Jodrell Bank dish
on one of its Halley’s Comet stamps,
along with a traditional refracting
telescope. This juxtaposition was
presumably intended to convey the
advances in astronomy since the
previous appearance of Halley’s Comet
in 1910.
Liechtenstein produced a pair of
stamps for the 1988 Europa issue on
the theme of Transport and
Communications. For the
Communications stamp they depicted
the dish at Jodrell Bank, receiving or
emitting a string of data.
In 1993 Tanzania produced a
commemorative set for the 450th
anniversary of the death of Nicolaus
Copernicus which included a realistic
depiction of the Jodrell Bank
telescope. The set has no Stanley
Gibbons number because it was
deemed not to have been issued for
normal postal use, although the US
Scott catalogue gives it the number 1034.
Back home in Cheshire the Jodrell Bank radio telescope,
upgraded and improved over the years, continues its work
surveying the Universe at the core of a network of seven
radio telescopes called e-MERLIN.
ILLUSTRATIONS: Full colour images can be found on the
various references to Ian website given below
2011 Jodrell Bank stamp
http://www.ianridpath.com/stamps/image/2011%20Jodrell.jpg
From the Royal Mail press release for the stamp:
“For over 50 years the giant Lovell Telescope at Jodrell Bank has been a
familiar feature of the Cheshire landscape and an internationally renowned
landmark in the world of astronomy. Since the summer of 1957 it has been
quietly probing the depths of space, a symbol of our wish to understand the
universe in which we live. Even now, it remains one of the biggest and most
powerful radio telescopes in the world, spending most of its time
investigating cosmic phenomena which were undreamed of when it was
conceived.”
1966 GB Jodrell Bank stamp SG 701
http://www.ianridpath.com/stamps/image/Jodrell.jpg
1990 GB stamp showing Jodrell Bank, from Astronomy set SG 1522
http://www.ianridpath.com/stamps/image/19901.jpg
1958 Haiti stamp(s) SG 581, 585
http://www.ianridpath.com/stamps/image/jodrellhaiti.jpg
1965 Hungary SG 2059 http://www.ianridpath.com/stamps/image/jodrellhungary.jpg
1971 Ascension SG 143 http://www.ianridpath.com/stamps/image/jodrellascension.jpg
1986 Barbuda SG 866 http://www.ianridpath.com/stamps/image/jodrellbarbuda.jpg
1988 Liechtenstein SG. 931 http://www.ianridpath.com/stamps/image/jodrellLiechtenstein.jpg
1993 Tanzania SG no n/a http://www.ianridpath.com/stamps/image/jodrelltanzania.jpg
Andriyan Gregoryevitch Nikolayev cont Although Nikolayevich and Tereshkova had a daughter, Elena Andryanovna (today a medical physicist) they divorced in 1979. However, their final separation came only through in 1982 after consent of President Brezhnev. On January 22nd 1969 Nikolayev was present at the attack on the President, but the cosmonaut was unhurt. He would make one more spaceflight - from 1 to 19 January 1970 together with Vitali Sevastianov in Soyuz 9. This flight also had its problems. First, the craft had to be rotated a bit (0.5° per second) which influenced their performances. The cause was a defect of a solar cell causing a lack of energy requiring the other cell to be used to its maximum. Because of the continuous movement the cosmonauts became very tired and at the end of the flight the cosmonauts were making mistakes. After landing they were so tired that they could not walk without support. Their recovery lasted ten days, which was considered as very long. Nikolayev is a two times Hero of the Soviet Union and bearer of the Order of the Red Star and Lenin, together with different foreign distinctions. A crater on the Moon is named in honour of him. After a heart attack Nikolayev passed away on June 3rd 2004 in the capital of Chuvasia, Cheboksary. After his death his daughter desired to bury him in Star City, but the President of Chuvasia had him buried at his birth place Shorshely instead. How far the plans are executed to rebury him in Star City, I do not know. With the death of Nikolayev we said farewell to one of the most disciplined but also one of the most unknown of the early Soviet cosmonauts John Beenen
14
ORBIT
Un-manned Satellites on Postage Stamps : 36 By Guest Contributors Don Hillger and Garry Toth
A version of this article first appeared in The Astrophile for Jan/Apr 2010 (pub June 2011)
The Echo Series This is the thirty-sixth in a series of articles about un-manned satellites on postage stamps. This article features the satellites in the U.S. Echo series. The first Echo attempt was a launch failure on 13 May 1960, followed by the successful launch of Echo-1A on 12 August 1960. The last one, Echo-2, was launched on 25 January 1964. The Echo satellites were simply large spherical balloons. They were inflated automatically in space by the vaporization of benzoic acid contained within them. The Echo satellites were the first civilian telecommunications satellites. They merely reflected back toward Earth the electromagnetic signals striking their surface. Echo-1A was designed to be a passive communications reflector for intercontinental and transcontinental telephone (voice), radio, and television signals. The 30 m diameter balloon was made of very thin (0.0127 mm) mylar polyester film and had a mass of only 76 kg. Echo-1A carried a beacon transmitter for telemetry purposes, powered by nickel-cadmium batteries charged by solar cells mounted on the balloon. As a result of the large size and low mass of the satellite, measurements of the changes of its orbit with time were also used to determine atmospheric density and solar pressure at its orbital altitude. Thus, a secondary goal of this satellite was scientific in nature. Echo-2 was a larger, 41 m diameter, balloon of aluminum foil-mylar laminate. It was used to test propagation, tracking, and passive communications techniques. Like Echo-1A, a beacon telemetry system provided a signal for tracking, and also relayed the internal pressure of the balloon. The inflation pressures were small compared to those on Earth, but were large compared to the relative vacuum of space. Before the Echo-1A launch, five sub-orbital Shotput launches were used to test Echo concepts. Similarly, before the orbital flight of Echo-2, two sub-orbital tests called Big Shot took place. However, Big Shot-1 failed due to the balloon rupturing during inflation. Because of the “first” nature of the Echo satellites, a large number of postal items show one or the other of these spacecraft. On most of the stamps, either Echo-1, or Echo-2, or both Echo satellites are specifically identified. A checklist of postal items identified as showing Echo-series satellites (http://rammb.cira.colostate.edu/dev/hillger/Echo.htm) - most of which is reprinted opposite—is available
as part of the Website developed by the authors to accompany this series of articles (http://rammb.cira.colostate.edu/dev/hillger/satellites.htm). E-mail correspondence is welcome. Don Hillger can be reached at [email protected] and Garry Toth at [email protected].
NASA photo taken from Encyclopaedia Astronautica site.
15
ORBIT
16
ORBIT
Pavel Popovich’s Vostok 4
Part of Soviet one-upmanship after Glenn’s flight
Pavel Romanovich Popovich was a quite different person from his companion Andryian Nikolayev who looked a bit gloomy, writes John Beenen. On the contrary, he was very lively and cheerful and after his flight many excesses became known. He was born on October 5th 1930 in Usin, Kiev Oblast, now in the Ukraine, as a son of a fireman in a sugar factory. He had one younger and one older sister (Nadeja and Tkatsjenko) and two younger brothers (Peter, Nicholas). During the Second World War his birth certificate was destroyed by fire and although his mother persisted that had been born in 1929 a new certificate was made stating 1930 due to other testimonies. In 1947 he left school as a carpenter, but in 1951 he had finished training as a technician at the school of Magnitogorsk. There exists a story that he started his active career as a shepherd and perhaps he did this for a while but then as a side-line. After that he continued his study at the Military Air School at Novosibirsk. From 1954 he received further education at Grozny to be a pilot in the Soviet Air force. In 1958 he passed the exams at the Academia for Aircraft in Monino. What is little known is that he had a very good voice and had a big repertoire of old and nostalgic Ukrainian songs. Popovich was married to Marina Lavrentievna Vasiliovna (20-7-1931).
Marina had been one of the most important woman pilots of the Soviet Air force and as such even in 2007 received a distinction of President Putin. With Pavel she had two daughters, Natalia Pavlovna (in 1956) and Oksana Pavlovna (b.1968). He had three grandchildren. Marina Popovich, was colonel-pilot in the Soviet Air force and is also known as the writer of a book about UFO observations in the Soviet
Union ‘The Soviet dossier UFO’ UFO Glasnost), which I possess and which I used for my former article about UFO’s. In this book a series of very strange observations have been described. Popovich himself claimed to have had an UFO experience once when he returned in a flight from Washington DC. The whole crew and a scientific delegation saw a perfect three-angled machine, emitting a clear light. The object was at a distance of 1.5 km and about 1 km above them. It flew with a speed of about 1500 km per hour and the whole observation lasted 30-40 seconds. With all Pavel’s escapades after his flight in space and Marina’s career the marriage did not last. There circulates a story that Marina caught Pavel in a tender embracement with the wife of cosmonaut Gorbatko and when discovered he had hit Marina. In any case he was hit in the face back and received a black eye from the brother of Marina. They divorced. In later years Pavel married again Alevtina Fjodorovna Oshegova, an economics engineer (b. 1940).
From March 1960 Popvich was selected for training as a cosmonaut. As one of the best he rightly belonged to the last six and had been chosen for the fourth Vostok flight, which he was to fly together with Vostok 3, manned by Andryian Nikolayev which had been launched one day before.
In his Vostok he was launched on August 12th 1962 and made a flight of 2 days, 22 hours and 57 minutes, in which he orbited earth 49 times. During these flights the two pilots conversed together including about the quality of the food. It appeared that Popovitch had smoked fish on the menu and Nikolayev not. Nikolayev asked why he did not have had such a dish. Popovitch answered that he should have asked for it. ‘Will you give me
some’, asked Nikolayev, ‘if I come a bit closer’ But there were also problems, when the temperature in his space suit dropped to 11 C°. It was a point of discussion if the flight should have been cancelled earlier. There also had been a misunderstanding with ground control when Popovich reported a thunderstorm, which appeared also to be a pre-arranged word for his vomiting. Ground control became uneasy,
but Popovich declared it was a real thunderstorm which he had seen. In January 1964 he became deputy chief of the education of the second draft of cosmonauts and was selected for one of the planned moon flights before they were cancelled. In 1968 he was a candidate for Soyuz 2, but after the unfortunate flight of Komarov in Soyuz 1 the second craft flew
unmanned. He did fly one further time from 3-19 June 1974 in Soyuz 14, together with Yuri Artyukhin and again under the name Berkut (golden eagle). With this flight he reached an altitude of 195-217 km and at June 14th they docked with Salyut 3. It was a routine flight mainly meant for military purposes. Starting from 1976 Popovich became a general-major and in 1978 sub-manager of the Gagarin cosmonaut training centre responsible for research and testing. Then he moved to sub-manager of the central training centre. In 1982 his finished his career as a cosmonaut but kept the same job. After his flight he also became a member of the Supreme Soviet in the Ukraine and later he moved to Moscow. On September 29th 2009 (September 30th Moscow time) he died in the hospital of Gurzuf (Krum), where he had been admitted with a brain haemorrhage. He was buried in Moscow. Popovich was two times ‘Hero of the Soviet Union’ and was honoured with the Order of the Red Star, Lenin and some other distinctions. He became honorary citizen of quite a handful of Russian and Ukrainian cities. A planetoid is called after him and in his birthplace Uzin a bust of him has been erected. A mountain chain in the Antarctic bears his name. John Beenen
17
ORBIT
New Issue Guide Noted in STAMP Magazine
(Jan 11—Jan 12)* Use also “Space” as a search in Tony
Angola (21.6.01) Total Eclipse of the Sun on issue date 30kz val depicts eclipse SG MS1619 - Mi Block 95 - Sc 1187 Angola (4.12.02) Total Eclipse of the Sun on 21.6.01 21kz val depicts partial eclipse, 35kz two-thirds, 37kz total SG MS1661 – Mi Block 102 – Sc 1233
Antigua (13.11.09) IYA and 40th anniv Apollo XI 4 x $2,50 vals in minisheet relating to Moon landing. SG MS4249 – Mi 4693/96 – Sc 3049 Austria (12.4.11) 50th anniv of First Manned Spaceflight 65c val shows astronaut working on outside of ISS SG MS4250 – Mi Block 662 – Sc 3050
Bhutan (22.6.09) ITA and Total Eclipse of Sun on 22.7.09 2 x 25nu values showing monks, musicians and eclipse SG 1790 – Mi Bl. 486 – Sc 1443 Bulgaria (20.7.09) 40th anniv of Apollo XI 60st val shows Armstrong and Eagle on Moon SG MS4742 – Mi Bl. 318A – Sc 4523
Bulgaria (20.7.09) 2009 Stamp Exhibition Minisheet containing above Apollo XI commemorative SG MS4742a – Mi Bl. 318B – Sc (not listed) Bulgaria (9.10.09) 140th anniv of Bulgarian Academy of Sciences 60st design includes satellite and atomic diagram SG 4723 – Mi 4924 – Sc 4524 Bulgaria (1.4.11) Day of humour: Discovery of minor planet Gabrovo in 1976 65st val shows celestial panorama with planets and Gabrovo as haricot bean in space. SG 4789 – Mi 4985 – Sc 4564 Bulgaria (12.4.11) 50th anniv of Gagarin and first flight to Venus
65c val shows Gagarin and 1.50L Venus and Venera SG MS47914 – Mi Bl. 339 – Sc 4566 Canada (17.1.11) Maple leaf flag definitivies 1 of 5 59c vals shows the Canadian flag on Canadarm on ISS water activated sheetlet of 5 is SG MS2749 – Mi Bl. 136 – Sc 2418 Self-adhesive pane of 10 (2 each) is SGb 2728a – Mi 26/1/95 – Sc 2423a Canada (21.3.11) Signs of Zodiac : Aries 59c val includes symbol and diagram of constellation SG 2762 – Mi 2710 – Sc 2449 Canada (21.4.11) Signs of Zodiac : Taurus 59c val includes symbol and diagram of constellation SG 2763 – Mi 2715 – Sc 2450 Canada (20.5.11) Signs of Zodiac : Gemini 59c val includes symbol and diagram of constellation SG2764 – Mi 2723 – Sc 2451 Canada (22.6.11) Signs of Zodiac : Cancer 59c val includes symbol and diagram of constellation SG 2765 – Mi 2734 – Sc 2452 Sheetlet containing this and above 3 stamps – SG MS2774 – Mi 2735/38 – Sc 2445 Czech Republic (16.6.10) 600th anniv of Astronomical Clock in Prague 21kc value shows night sky, stars, comet and Moon SG 616 – Mi 639 – Sc 3458
France (11.6.10) Launch of Soyuz Spacecraft from Guyana 85c val shows launch of Soyuz 2-1a rocket (and toucan). Water activated stamp – SG 4823 – Mi 4872 – Sc 3827 Self-adhesive stamp – SG 4824 – Mi 4925 – Sc 3828 French Polynesia (20.7.09) 40th anniv of Apollo XI on moon 140f val shows Polynesian tourist on Moon holding a flag SG 1123 – Mi 1075 – Sc 1004 Georgia (15.10.10) Europa : IYA
*Last new issues listing on page 20ff of Orbit 88 (Jan 2011) Many thanks to Peter Hoffman for catalogue numbers and other comments
18
ORBIT
2G val has sketch of concentric circles of planetary orbits And images of Sun, Uranus and Venus 2G val show pectoral bracelet with image of Sun (17-14th century BC) and image of Mars Stamps – Mi 587/88 (SG and Sc numbers not yet assigned) Sheetlet of 2 – Mi Block 46 (SG and Sc numbers not yet assigned) Great Britain (11.1.11) The Genius of Gerry Anderson Stamps within issue of six + MS include references to comic rocket characters and rocket ships e.g. Fireball XL% and Thunderbirds Stamps – SG 2136/41 – Mi 3030/35 – Sc 2857/62 Souvenir sheet – SG MS3142 – Mi Bl. 62 – Sc 2863
India (14.11.07) Children’s Day Magic of the Night 1 of 2 5r stamps shows children at play under stars and moon The one stamp is SG 2519 – Mi 2306 – Sc 2266 Italy (2.7.10) Giovanni Schiaperelli (1835-1910) 65c val shows astronomer, Mars and his drawing of “canals” SG 3289 – Mi 3393 – Sc 3012 Japan (4.11.09) 60th anniv of Autonomous Local Govt in Nigata 1 of 5 80y vals shows H-11 space rocket and starry sky over Mount Tsukuba Sheetlet of 5 is SG 4224a – Mi Bl. 207 – Sc 3169 Lithuania (10.7.10) 75th anniv of Kretinga Museum 1 of 2 1.35Lt vals shows astronomical calendar (stones and stele) in park. Pair is Mi 1042/43 – Sc 921 (SG number not yet assigned) Macedonia (4.3.11) 50th anniv of Gagarin 40d val shows astronaut on spacewalk over Earth SG 1006 - Mi 583 (Sc number not yet assigned) Peru (23.3.09) World Meteorology Day Design includes a weather depression seen from satellite SG 2623 – Mi 2367 – Sc 1676 Poland (28.1.11) Jan Heveliusz (1611-1687) 6 x 3zl vals showing him as astronomer, brewer and Gdansk City Councillor SG 4444 – Mi 4505 – SC 3999 Russia (10.9.10) Gherman Titov (1935-2000) 10.5r val shows portrait of cosmonaut SG 7715 – Mi 1674 – Sc 7237
Russia (29.9.10) Space dogs 10r stamp shows Belka and Strelka launched in Sputnik 5,
1960 SG 7224 – Mi 1687 – Sc 7247 Russia (25.1.11) Mstislav Keldysh (1911-78) 12r val shows Keldysh and Sputnik 1 Mi 1694 – Sc 7254 (SG number not yet assigned) Russia (12.4.11) 50th anniv of Gagarin 50r val shows Gagarin in space suit Mi Bl. 145 (SG and Sc numbers not yet assigned) South Africa (5.11.10) South Africa Quiz One of ten 4.90r vals queries a telescope big enough to see candelight on the moon. There are 2 stamps that mention the moon: Which SA invention has been to the Moon? – SG 1869 – Mi 2029 Telescope strong enough to see candlelight (note corrected spelling) on the moon – SG 1874 – Mi 2034 (Sc numbers have not yet been assigned) South Africa (1.4.11) SumbandilaSat Survey Satellite 5 x 2.50r vals showing various aspects of construction, launch and flight of satellite. SG 1882/86 – Mi 2042/46 - (Sc numbers have not yet been assigned) Spain (2.6.08) 1 of 4 31c vals depicts Joan Oró I Florensa (1923-2004) who worked for NASA devising experiments and analysed meteorites and Martian soil samples SG 4365 – Mi 4324 – Sc 3583 Spain (23.4.09) Europa and IYA 62c val depicts Moon, light rays and the sun. SG 4441 – Mi 4413 – Sc 3638 Spain (5.4.10) Spanish Cinema—Agora award winning film
In film Rachel Weisz plays Hypatia a 4th century Astronomer and philosopher. SG 4510 – Mi 4495 – Sc 3704 Turkey (17.5.10) RASAT Earth Observation Satellite Project 75k val shows RASAT and globe MI 3827 – Sc 3227 (SG number not yet assigned) Tuvalu (11.09.08) 50th anniv of Sputnik Five sheetlets of four to six stamps depict various landmark launches in the history of manned/unmanned spaceflight SG 1338/59 – Mi 1454/75 – Sc 1072/76 Tuvalu 20.7.09 40th anniv of Apollo XI
19
ORBIT
ASTEROIDS Some Bits and Pieces
Can You Support This Chinese Initiative ? Our Chinese member Ling Fugen writes… “We are planning to build an astrophilatelic museum in Beijing, to display varieties of astrophilately items, such as historical documents, photos featuring the development, major celebrities in this field, etc. We would very much appreciate any kind of possible participation and contribution on your part. Especially, your autographed photos are of great value to us. As long as your offering is relevant and valuable enough, we would in return send you Chinese astrophilately collectibles for free, Ling Fugen PO.BOX 100085-032 Beijing,100085,China
Cheese-eaters in Space Bert van Eijck, who has already responded to Ling’s request as above with a major contribution, writes about the recent launch of Dutch astronaut André Kuipers (53) who celebrated Christmas 2011 400 kilometres above Earth with four kilos of “Old Amsterdam”, a brand, ripened cheese he took with him. The Modern Flying Dutchman (see Orbit nr. 91, October 2011) shared it with his five astronaut-companions aboard the ISS. They do not have to worry about food for the coming months for they took with them dinners from three-Michelin-star chef Alain Ducasse, with for instance salmon, sword-fish, cheesecake and apple compote. The launch on December 21st via Soyuz TM-3M on a already dark space base Baikonur, Kazakhstan, was a perfect one. Next to André Kuipers sat in the narrow capsule Oleg Kononenko (Russia) and Donald Pettit (USA). That same day Dutch Post NL issued a sheet of three stamps depicting André Kuipers in Space. They show Kuipers on his previous space mission in 2004, on a training session and ISS above Earth. There are also three picture postcards Earth from Space. These stamps & cards in small quantity are only to buy via internet www.collectclub.postnl.nl. Specially for Orbit the manager of the Philatelic Department of PostNL made an exception and sent the stamps to your reporter—see page 27. Hopefully other stamp issuing territories will also mark this flight.
6 x $1 and 4 x $1.30 stamps within two sheetlets shows various aspects of the flight SG MS 1379/80 - Mi 1526/35 – Sc 1091/92 USA (4.5.11) NASA Space Missions 2 44c vals shows Freedom 7 and Messenger (to Mercury in March 2011) flights Mi 4701/02 – Sc 4527/28 (pair is Sc 4528a) (SG number not yet assigned) USA (19.8.11) Pixar Film Characters 1 of 5 44c vals shows Buzz Lightyear and aliens Set is Mi 4748/52 –Sc 4553/57 (strip of 5 is Sc 4557a) (SG number not yet assigned) Vatican City (20.9.10) Bicentenary of Birth of Pope Leo XIII 65c val shows his coat of arms which includes a comet (or moon ?) in the design Mi 1673 – Sc 1445 (SG number not yet assigned)
20
ORBIT
Ancient & Modern
How mythological allusion has inspired naming conventions within our fields of interest:
5: Space Probes, Projects and Programmes continued
J-O
Jupiter was the name given to an IRBM (similar to Thor) developed in the 1960’s for the US Army then assigned to the USAF. Such missiles were installed in Europe but secretly withdrawn in the aftermath of the Cuban missile crisis. Jupiter was the largest of the planets known to ancient astronomers and as such it was most appropriate it be called after the supreme Roman god Jupiter, known to the Greeks as Zeus, who disguised himself often as a bull in order to seduce females he took a fancy to.
(Greece 1953 shows the statue of Zeus of Istiaca, The planet is shown on Tanzania 2006 and one of the god’s famous disguises as the constellation Taurus on Romania 2002). Loki was an American unguided sold-propellant barrage anti aircraft rocket of the 1950’s adapted for use as a meteorological sounding rocket.
Loki was one of the major deities in Norse mythology. He is connected with fire and magic and can shape-shift. He is both crafty and malicious— and heroic. Loki was responsible for death of noble Balder the god of light, who was apparently immortal until Loki treacherously found his Achilles heel. Consequently Loki suffered an awful death with searing poison dripping over his face from a serpent in a never-ending
punishment. This scene is depicted on Faroes 2004 illustrating a poem about Loki by Janus Djurhuus.
Mars Odyssey is just one of many projects which have the Roman God of War (after whom our neighbouring red planet is called) in their name. This 2001 project had the primary science mission of mapping the amount and distribution of chemical elements and minerals on the planet’s surface. Any long distance journey involving risk is likely to be dubbed an Odyssey, after Odysseus (Ulysses to the Romans) who endured a ten year return home to his wife Penelope at the end of the Trojan wars. Ciskei 1991 shows Mars, Greece 1983 Ares (the Greek god War adopted by the Romans as Mars) and Greece 1964 Odysseus
Mercury was America's first man-in-space project, setting the precedent for the later Gemini, Apollo, and Shuttle programmes. The capsule had to be as small as possible to match the payload capability of America's first ICBM, the Atlas, which would be used for orbital missions. The resulting design was less than a third of the weight of the Russian Vostok spacecraft, and more limited as a result. Mercury is the Roman equivalent of Hermes, (France 1942) the messenger of the Gods in the Greek pantheon and is the subject of more stamps than any other figure in classical mythology. Therefore sending a messenger to Mercury as the Americans did so in 2004 seems particularly appropriate ! (USA 2011)
Merlin is the name of SpaceX’s Lox/Kerosene engine which had its first flight in 2008. Merlin is named after fabled English king Arthur’s “wise old man” mentor and confidante. (GB 1985)
21
ORBIT
Midas was an American USAF then-secret early warning satellite of the 1960’s. “MIDAS” was an acronym of Missile Defense Alarm System but no doubt it was hoped that everything it observed would be done so successfully as in the case of another Midas who was a legendary king in Greek mythology with the attribute that everything he touched would turn to gold. This US Zazzle stamp shows The Stranger Appearing to King Midas in an illustration by Walter Crane for an 1850’s book by Nathaniel Hawthorne. (The stranger is clearly Hermes, given his winged helmet and caduceus). Minotaur was a low cost four-stage Space Launch Vehicle developed for USAF’s Orbital Suborbital Program, using a combination of surplus Minuteman II ICBM motors. Minotaur made its inaugural flight in January 2000, successfully delivering a number of small military and university satellites into orbit and marking the first-use of surplus Minuteman boosters in a space launch.
In Greek mythology the minotaur (Greece 2009) was a dreadful monster (half man, half bull) which lived in the Labyrinth in Crete and which was slayed by Theseus with the help of Ariadne’s ingenious use of ball of twine so her hero
could escape from the maze by retracting his steps exactly. Neptune was the name given to an American sea-launched orbital launch vehicle which once in orbit could become a small space station. First planned in the early 2000’s this has still to come to fruition. Neptune (Italy 1992) was the Roman god the sea, the equivalent to the Greek Poseidon. Nike was the name given to a lengthy series of an American multi-stage sounding rockets, originally employed in the development of the Nike-Ajax surface to air missile.
Nike (GB 1948) was the Greek winged goddess of Victory, reinterpreted as Victoria by the Romans and characterised by laurel leaves, often in the form of a crown.
Odin was a Swedish infrared astronomy satellite weighing around 250g launched in February 2001 carrying both astrophysics and atmospheric science instruments. Odin (aka Wotan or Wodan) was the one-eyed chief divinity of the Norse pantheon, god of war and death, but also of poetry and wisdom. He is usually depicted with his fail-safe spear Gungnir, his ring Draupnir, his eight legged steed Sleipnir, the wolves Freki and Geri, and two ravens Hugin and Munin, some of whom can be seen on Sweden 1981, shown here enlarged. Olympus was a European telecomsat launched in July 1989. It tested direct TV broadcast beams and was equipped with conventional communications transponders. Mount Olympus (shown on Greece 1973) was the fabled home of the Greek gods, both the ancient giants and the new regime led by Zeus who usurped and banished the older generation. Orion is the name used for several space projects, for example an American nuclear-pulse drive launch vehicle between 1955-65, developed in competition with von Braun’s chemical rockets and to a domestic communications satellite network. More recently the name has been given to NASA’s manned spacecraft for the new century. Orion was a giant huntsman in Greek mythology whom Zeus placed amongst the stars a constellation (USA 2005) one of the easiest to find in the heavens. He first appears in Homer’s Odyssey where Odysseus sees his shade in the Underworld. He hunted with Artemis the goddess of the hunt and was possibly killed by her accidentally or by a scorpion. Likewise Pegasus has been used as the title of a handful of space projects — a French sounding rocket, a privately funded air-launched winged light satellite launcher and an American micrometeoroid satellite with three launches in the mid-1960s. After Hermes, Pegasus is the second most popular topic for philatelic celebration of the Greek pantheon, often as the constellation which bears his name. He was a winged horse, the son of Poseidon, tamed by Athena and presented to the Muses on Mount Parnassus. Greece 1935
shows him mounted by Bellerophon.
22
ORBIT
Apollo 11 Insurance Covers by Umberto Cavallero, Editor of Ad Astra*
One philatelic novelty introduced by the Apollo 11 mission were the “insurance covers”, pre-signed envelops that the astronauts left with trusted individuals as a form of life insurance that family members would be able to sell to collectors if something went wrong. They are therefore unflown covers that, in the context of the collectables, have a special meaning. The triumphant trip to the Moon was of course a trip into the unknown. The most dangerous part of the trip was not landing the lunar module on the moon, but launching it back up to the mothership. If that failed, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin could not be rescued. In 1999 a journalist, while investigating on White House’s documents related to affairs with China in the 60s, quite by chance discovered the paper “In Event of Moon Disaster", written as a contingency by speech writer William Safire, apparently under suggestion by Frank Borman, two days before the lunar landing. The undelivered speech that President Richard Nixon would have read in the case of a tragic outcome read: “Fate has ordained that the men who went to the moon to explore in peace will stay on the moon to rest in peace. These brave men, Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin, know that there is no hope for their recovery. But they also know that there is hope for mankind in their sacrifice. “These two men are laying down their lives in mankind's most noble goal: the search for truth and understanding. They will be mourned by their families and friends; they will be mourned by their nation; they will be mourned by the people of the world; they will be mourned by a Mother Earth that dared send two of her sons into the unknown. “In their exploration, they stirred the people of the world to feel as one; in their sacrifice, they bind more tightly the brotherhood of man. In ancient days, men looked at stars and saw their heroes in the constellations. In modern times, we do much the same, but our heroes are epic men of flesh and blood. Others will follow, and surely find their way home. Man's search will not be denied. But these men were the first, and they will remain the foremost in our hearts. “For every human being who looks up at the moon in the nights to come will know that there is some corner of another world that is forever mankind”.
Because of the high risk, there wasn't an insurance company that would insure a man ready to go to the Moon. While in quarantine prior to launch, the crew was approached by a representative of the Houston Manned Spacecraft Club (MSC), who suggested the idea to sign a quantity of Apollo 11 covers with the MSC cachet and to leave them with their families as a form of life insurance that could be sold to collectors in the event that something went wrong. The crew agreed, and bought around 1,500 MSC covers, but nobody knows for sure the exact number. Philately was at that time a sort of “national pastime” and space attracted the attention of people and, particularly, of collectors. Not only in the States. Those space covers were therefore assigned the task of providing a limited financial means of support for the families should they fail to return. (The expectation for easy earning through space covers—how times have changed! - , carried to excess, would lead two years later to the scandal of the Apollo 15 covers). It seems that during the pre-flight quarantine, the crew decided to include not only the Club’s own printed cachet envelope but alos other popular covers available and asked colleagues to find others on the market. Due to the shortness of time available, they found locally cover of two different types. Therefore three types of “insurance covers” do exist: 1) MSC covers; 2) Mission Patch covers; 3) Dow Unicover covers. This is tentative because no “official” record was kept and it has been noted that the style of crew autograph is different on the MSC covers compared with the other two. The latter two type of covers were cancelled at the Kennedy Space Center central post office on the day of the launch using the pictorial NASA postmark “dark Nasa logo” according to F.I.P. rules regarding competitive astrophilately prescribing that postal documents (envelopes and cards) must be cancelled at the post office nearest to the place and on the exact date of the special events.
Mission Patch Cover cancelled at KSC central post office On Jul 16, 1969, day of launch.
A longer version of this was first published in Ad Astra 9-10 for July 2011. This feature is an extract from Umberto’s book
Propaganda e Pragmatismo not yet available in English.
23
ORBIT
Tom Stafford took then care of the MSC covers and brought them to Houston where the Mission Control was. In Houston they were then cancelled the day of the Moon landing – again according to competitive astrophilately rules – at the post office nearest to the site where the technical support was assisting the astronauts who had landed on the Moon. After this operation, all the covers were equally divided into three groups and a few hundred covers were delivered in equal amounts to each astronaut’s family. “Insurance Covers” are very sought after by collectors for several reasons: first of all signatures are “coeval” since the covers were certainly signed during the pre-flight quarantine (unlike covers signed years later at different locations). Consequently, and a point not to be undervalued, the signatures are certainly genuine. Finally, Insurance Covers transcend generic autograph items because of the role they played, and dramatically remind the risk that astronauts faced with bravery. The tradition of the “insurance covers” went on until Apollo 16. An Apollo 17 insurance cover has never been seen. This may be because Apollo 17 occurred at the time that the fallout from the Apollo 15 flown postal cover "scandal" arrived, and covers became "taboo". It’s interesting to note that crew signed Insurance Covers were prepared also for Apollo 13, but those covers were signed days before launch by the original crew and the last-minute replacement of Ken Mattingly by Jack Swigert, resulted in Apollo 13 Insurance covers not being signed by Swigert who flew in Mattingly's place. Only after the mission did Jack Swigert sign a few of them, but at that time they had, fortunately, lost their “insurance” purpose.
2. The first Lunar Post Office - the Moon Letter. Meanwhile, U.S. Post Office Department had delivered to NASA an engraved master die – created in secret – which would later be used to make the stamp's printing plate. The master die had to be carried to the Moon on-board the lunar module Eagle, together with an envelope franked with an imperforate b/w die proof of the stamp, still to be issued. It’s difficult to say if this event somehow influenced the
decision to bring 214 covers and fly them on the Apollo 11 mission. The “Moon Letter” had to be cancelled at the moon landing site, in the “Lunar Post Office” temporarily operating at the Sea of Tranquillity. For this event Armstrong had been appointed Post Master and equipped with a special stamp pad, made for Apollo 11 by the Baumgarten Company of Washington, D.C., a manufacturer of rubber stamps for postal use since 1888. When the cancelling device was delivered, NASA officials told the company it was too heavy. On the Moon mission, and especially on the Eagle's lift-off from the Moon's surface, there was great attention was paid to any ounce of excess weight. So a Baumgarten worker drilled a series of holes in the wooden handle and mount. "It looked like a piece of Swiss cheese when we were finished," recalled James A. Baturin, the firm's president.
Besides the “Moon Landing” cancel, the kit delivered to Armstrong included an ink pad and a handwritten memo by T.E. Jenkins, responsible for the operation, with the recommendation: “Envelope enclosed to be cancelled anytime during Mission” then corrected as: “on landing on moon”. Help was requested from Matthew Radnofsky, the NASA engineer who since 1967 was deeply involved in the development of beta cloth, the flame proof material developed, as a result of the Apollo 1 fire, to protect the astronauts. Matt was also a well known collector and, at the time, he was serving as President of the NASA Manned Spacecraft Center Stamp Club.
Dow Unicover Cover—the rarest type—cancelled at KSC central post office on Jul 16, 1969, day of launch.
MSC Cover cancelled at Houston on Jul 20, 1969, day of the Moon Landing. 1286 examples of such an insurance cover
seem to exist but sadly often with an indistinct cancel
24
ORBIT
He simulated cancelling in space in his laboratory, where he tested the “Moon Landing” postmarking device with four proof covers (numbered by hand 1 to 4). Then he additionally prepared 150 Specimens for Philatelic Reference, numbered 1 to 150, which also have on the back a Webster “Aug 11, 1969” machine cancel. Most of the 150 specimen covers were MSC covers (prepared by the Stamp Club where Matt was President) and some were blank covers. All of them were marked “Specimen for Philatelic Reference (# … of 150”). To avoid any misunderstanding, both proof and specimen covers were marked with a rubber handstamp clearly reading: “The marking and inscriptions on this cover are examples of the usage of the postmarks and cancellations applied to mail which was carried aboard the flight of Apollo Eleven. This is not a flown cover”. The Post Office Department wanted to have this great event recorded through live TV, with commentary by the astronauts (as it would be done later by Dave Scott during the Apollo 15 Mission) but NASA refused any additional task, because the astronauts' schedule was already too busy with scientific tasks and other duties. Ironically later it turned out that the astronauts forgot to cancel the “Lunar Letter” on the Moon. So the “Moon Letter” was then "back-dated" by the crew on their way back to Earth, on July 22, 1969, after docking with the Columbia CSM. In his book “Carrying the Fire”, Mike Collins described the short “postmarking ceremony”: “We also have a stamp kit, including a first day cover commemorating the issuance of a new ten-cent stamp showing an astronaut at the foot of the LM ladder about to sample the lunar surface. With the envelope is an ink pad and a cancellation stamp which says “Moon Landing, Jul 20 1969, USA” (In the book Mike Collins reproduces a small draft of such cancel). Never mind that it is July 22. This is the first chance
we have had to get to it. We try the cancellation out first, inking it and printing it in our flight plan three times until we get the hang of it, and then we apply it gingerly to the one and only envelope, which we understand the postmaster general will put on tour”. After the recovery, the official “Moon Letter” and the other items returned from the moon were placed in the decontamination area of the Mobile Quarantine Facility, embarked on the USS Hornet Recovery Ship. The die was especially processed for decontamination before the prescribed quarantine period in the Lunar Receiving Laboratory had elapsed, and was flown on a special flight from the Houston Space Center to Washington, where it was delivered to the Post Office Department. On July 31, Postmaster General Blount provided press photographers with a quick look at the die, then sent it to the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, where the process of preparing the plates for stamp production began promptly. The Moon letter, after the prescribed 18 days quarantine, was put on show. The Post Office noted with pride that the Moon letter travelled more than a half-million miles, the longest distance any piece of mail had ever gone. It is now on display at the Postal Museum in Washington, D.C
3. The Apollo 11 flown covers – postmarked after their return from the Moon It was during the Apollo 11 pre-flight quarantine that the Apollo 11 crew came up with the idea of carrying postal
Front of Proof # 4 of 4 from the collection of Walter Hopferwieser
Matt Radnofsky specimen cover: #19 is a MSC cover
Below This is the one and only Apollo 11 envelope cancelled on the Moon. It is franked with a imperforate b/w die proof of the C76 stamp
designed by Paul Calle. This document is property of the US Government and may be considered the rarest postal item existing
worldwide. It is now on display at the Postal Museum in Washington,
25
ORBIT
covers to the Moon. Shortly before launch, the crewmembers Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins were presented by the NASA Manned Spacecraft Center Stamp Club with special MSC Apollo 11 postal covers, later known as “Insurance covers”. Meanwhile, U.S. Post Office Department had delivered to NASA the secret engraved master die together with an envelope to be cancelled on the Moon, shown on page 23. To repeat it is difficult to say if this did influence the decision of the crew, but shortly before launch, they decided to bring 214 covers and fly them in the Apollo 11 mission. They decided, as above, to include not only MSC covers but also other popular cachets available on the market. With the due permission of Deke Slayton, the legendary Chief of the Astronaut Office, the covers were inserted in the PPK (Personal Preference Kit) and put in the Columbia CSM, where they remained for the 8 days of the mission. So they did not reach the Moon surface. After the recovery, also those covers were quarantined for 18 days in Lunar Receiving Laboratory, as documented by the red rubber stamp, for the fear of unknown pathogens that may have existed on the moon. Only after the Apollo 14 mission, did biologists realize that there was no threat of
contagion and the quarantine process was dropped. During their quarantine the three astronauts signed all the covers. Aldrin signed with a Sharpie pen and added on his 104 covers the handwritten notation in capital letters “Carried on the moon on Apollo 11” and individually numbered each envelope with a progressive number, using different systems: from #1 to #54 the number is preceded by “EEA”, while from #55 to #104 the digits are preceded by “A”. Collins signed
with ball-point pen and added on each of his 63 covers, in italics, “Carried on the moon aboard Apollo 11”, without numbering the items. Little is known about the 47 covers hold by Armstrong, who signed with Sharpie pen. I’ve never seen such a cover on the market. On the afternoon of August 1969, 10, the astronauts entrusted to Radnofsky the package containing the flown covers, and asked him to have them postmarked at the nearest post office. Buzz Aldrin, using a Sharpie, listed on the package the envelopes held by each crew member: 47 by Armstrong, 63 by Collins, and 104 by Aldrin. Radnofsky the following day brought the
package to the Webster post office, south of Houston, cancelled the covers and brought them back to Aldrin. Only two covers exist, with a postmark applied at the moon (the Apollo 11 “Moon letter” and the Apollo 15 cover officially cancelled at Hadley Rile) but they are not in private possession and are owned by the US Government. Private collectors may however have specimens of the three postmarks prepared for the Moon (one for Apollo 11 and two for Apollo 15), which are occasionally seen in the specialized auctions.
4. The First Man on the Moon stamp: the greatest philatelic success ever. The stamp designed by Paul Calle is perhaps the best known American stamp ever. Paul Calle, who passed away on December 30, 2010 at 82, was from the outset, a Honorary Member of AS.IT.AF. the Italian Society for Astrophilately. Known since the beginnings of the 50’s as an illustrator of Science Fiction stories, Paul had specialised in space for almost 50 years. Paul was selected in 1962 as one of the first eight artists in the NASA Arts Program, newly established with the purpose of recording for history Space Exploration through the eyes of artists.
Above flown cover from the collection of Mike Collins and below one signed and numbered by Buzz Aldrin
To be continued
26
ORBIT
Little Known Apollo Flights by John Beenen Everyone who is interested in spaceflight knows that Apollo 1 never flew but was a disaster on the ground in which Gus Grissom, Roger Chaffee and Edward White met their deaths in January 1967.
After a delay of not more than 11 months the unmanned Apollo 4 was sent into space (9 November 1967) in a flight also known as Apollo-Saturn 501 or AS-501. At this time the first stage S-1C and the second stage S-II were tested for the first time. The S-IVB stage was the first one to be restarted in orbit. Also the re-entry from the moon was fully covered. Apollo 4 carried a Lunar Module dummy to simulate the loadings. The flight was smooth and the craft orbited in a nearly circular path at 190 km altitude. After two orbits the S-IVB was re-ignited and pushed the craft into an elliptical orbit of 85-17.218 km. After this test the rocket was fired one more time to reach re-entry speed. The flight was highly successful. Much less known are the flights of Apollo 2 and 3, which had little to do with manned moon flight but were destined for the project ‘Highwater’, in which some 100.000 litres of water was put into orbit to test its effect on radio transmissions and changes in local weather conditions. Apollo 2 was launched on April 25th, 1962 and Apollo 3 on November 16th of the same year. SA-2 was the second flight of a Saturn I vehicle and its objectives were nearly the same as from SA-1, which was already launched on October 27, 1961. Also this flight was fairly successful, but the engineers noted sloshing of the fuels in the tanks. This was tackled by applying extra anti-slosh baffles which proved to have a positive effect. As the launch of SA-3 took place just a couple of weeks after the Cuba-crisis incident it was relatively unnoticed. In both
of the launchings the rocket was exploded on purpose after a couple of minutes to release the water. All these Apollo missions are relatively unknown as are the flights Apollo 18-21, because of course they never flew. On the Internet you will find many hoaxes which claimed secret flights after Apollo 17, but it can be affirmed that due to the lack of launching vehicles, they couldn’t have happened. Yet it makes fun to read these pretensions coming from mostly UFO-addicts and “ordinary” disturbed minds. However, originally there were fifteen completed Saturn V rockets. Two were used by the unmanned Apollo 4 and 6 flights. Ten were used by the manned Apollo flights 7-17 and one boosted Skylab 1 into orbit. Apollo 5 was an unmanned flight and used a Saturn 1B rocket, smaller than the Saturn V. Hence two, some claim three, were remaining and can be seen in various constellations at several space centres in Florida, Huntsville and Houston. But as the Huntsville display was never built to fly, only two remain. This also is in accord with the three cancelled Apollo 18-20 missions for which the three remaining vehicles (including Skylab) originally were meant. For all the cancelled missions crews and objectives were already planned. Apollo 18 would have consisted of the back-up crew of Apollo 15: Richard Gordon, Vance Brand and Harrison Schmitt. When that flight was cancelled Schmitt moved to Apollo 17, because of his experience in geology, kicking Joe Engle from his seat. The Apollo 19 crew were: Fred Haise, William Pogue and Gerald Carr. The crew for Apollo 20 was more uncertain. It could have been Pete Conrad or Stuart Roosa, Paul Weitz and Jack Lousma, but Edward Mitchell, Jack Lousma and Don Lind also were possible candidates. Apollo 18 was planned to go to Schröter’s Valley, Gassendi Craters or Copernicus in February 1972, Apollo 19 to the Hyginus Rile region, Hadley Rile (the landing site of Apollo 15), or Copernicus and the Apollo 20 to the Hyginus Rile,
27
ORBIT
Copernicus, Marius Hills or even Tycho. After the failure of Apollo 13 the sites were re-ordered. In the closing days of the programme Schmitt lobbied strongly for landing on the dark side of the moon in the crater Tsiolkovsky. But it was rejected because of lack of funding and added risk. A number of sources refer to an Apollo 21 lunar-landing mission, but this cannot be true due to lack of Saturn propelling rockets. Some confusion may happen as during the series of flights flight numbers and assignments were changed regularly so that finally only after very deep digging the exact numbers can be found, but they always count up to a total of 15 Saturn V rockets. The term “Apollo 18” is also used for the Apollo-Soyuz flight (ASTP) in July 1975.
A further hoax regarding Apollo 18 has been caused by a screen play /2011 film of Brain Miller who talks of a certain conspiracy and shows a ‘picture?’ of the foot of an astronaut besides something what should resemble an alien’s claw. The reality is shown by a picture of a ‘top secret classified Wikileaks report’. An internet site claims that Apollo
20 was a rescue operation to recover an abandoned alien spaceship. (Due to its impact damages the ship should have been very old—1.5 billion years). Even photo’s of such a spaceship on the far side of the moon are shown. The crew of this Apollo 20 is suggested as William Rutledge, Leona Snyder and Alexei Leonov. However the magnification considered the space ship should have had enormous dimensions. And moreover, the video’s supporting these claims were first published on April 2007 Fools Day. Hence Miss, Mrs or Ms Leona Snyder never could be identified. Finally it is generally agreed that Rutledge made up this story But, it makes fun to read those stories, isn’t it? . http://www.astronautix.com http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net The Apollo 20 http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov Apollo 18 through 20 – The cancelled Missions http://lunarscience.arc.nasa.gov Apollo 18 through 20 – the cancelled Missions http://en.wikipedia.org Cancelled Apollo Missions
http://collectspace.com Three flights cancelled – two rockets left?
http://www.badastronomy.com ‘Apollo 18’ the moon hoax stood on his head
Cheese-eaters in Space
Continued from page 19
The Dutch Post NL issues of a sheet of three stamps depicting André Kuipers in
Space. They show Kuipers on his previous space mission in 2004, on a training
session and ISS above Earth. There are also three picture postcards Earth from
Space, two shown here…. To order see page 19 story.
28
Spacecraft Launch Sites : 2 from Bruce Cranford
29
ORBIT
A Selection of Launch Site Postmarks
A version of this article first appeared in The
Astrophile for Jan-Apr 2010, (published June
2011) from which these tables are lifted.
30
ORBIT
Al-Sufi’s Book of the Fixed Stars by Ian Ridpath
All astronomers have heard of Ptolemy, the ancient Greek astronomer who produced a catalogue of over a thousand stars divided into 48 constellations in the second century AD. Less familiar in the West, but no less influential, is the tenth-century Persian astronomer Abd al-Rahman al-Sufi (903–986), usually known simply as al-Sufi, or Azophi in Latinized form. Al-Sufi was the Arabic successor to Ptolemy at a time when the Greek tradition in astronomy had died out in the West but was being rediscovered in the Middle East. Al-Sufi produced the first-ever updating of Ptolemy's Almagest called the Book of the Fixed Stars. This appeared in or shortly after AD 964, some eight hundred years after the original Almagest was written.
Al-Sufi retained the same 48 constellations as in the Almagest but added some descriptions and Arabic star lore. The Book of the Fixed Stars became the standard constellation handbook for many centuries, inspiring the development of Arabic astronomy and eventually aiding the transmission of Greek
astronomy back into the West. One of its highlights was the illustrations of each constellation, something that was lacking in the Almagest itself. In 1985, Somalia issued a set of four stamps each featuring a different constellation as depicted in al-Sufi’s book. These stamps are not expensive but are difficult to find. Like all books in the days before printing, al-Sufi’s Book of the Fixed Stars was actually a hand-written manuscript. His original has long since disappeared but over 90 copies of it still exist. Reputedly the oldest surviving example, thought to date from only a couple of decades after al-Sufi’s death, is held in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, where it is known as manuscript Marsh 144. The diagrams on these Somali stamps are based on the illustrations in Marsh 144. The four constellations and the face values of the stamps are: Aquila (4 shillings 30); Taurus (11 s); Aries (12s 50); and
Orion (13s 80, although the Gibbons Simplified Catalogue lists it simply as 13s). Eagle-eyed astronomers will note that Taurus is shown back-to-front by comparison with the way it appears in the sky. In al-Sufi’s book, each constellation was depicted twice, first in mirror image, as it would appear on a celestial globe, and secondly as we actually see it. The designer of the Somali stamps has chosen the celestial globe view for Taurus, while Aquila and Orion are as we see them in the sky. Both versions of Aries are shown, since they both fitted on the same page of the book. On the charts of Marsh 144, the stars that Ptolemy had regarded as forming a given constellation are drawn as red dots with black labelling, in some cases including their names. Those stars that Ptolemy listed as lying outside the main constellation figures – which he called ‘unformed’ stars – are in black with red numbers. In addition, al-Sufi added more stars from his own observations, which were shown in black without accompanying numbers. Several of these can be seen on the Taurus stamp.
The Stanley Gibbons numbers for these stamps are 730–733. * Ian Ridpath’s astro-stamp pages start on http://www.ianridpath.com/stamps/stampindex.htm
The constellation Sagittarius in a manuscript of al-Sufi's Book of Fixed
Stars (Ex Wikipedia)
31
ORBIT
Conquerors of the Cosmos Obelisk
By Jim Reichman Probably the most awe-inspiring space monument in the world is a tall, silvery obelisk built to honour Soviet conquerors of the cosmos. This monument is located in the northern suburbs of Moscow, was conceived in the late 1950s, was externally complete by late 1964 but was not internally complete until early 1981. For most of the Cold War, the Soviet space programme was wrapped tightly in a security system that was absolutely paranoid about the prying eyes of foreign intelligence services. Such organizations, they believed, were sending agents to steal state secrets about their space programmes and space capabilities and might, perhaps, even attempt to hinder their progress by kidnapping or harming their space scientists and designers. The unfortunate results of this paranoia were that the living Soviet citizens most responsible for the space capabilities their country had built and the space achievements that had been accomplished were hidden in obscurity and could not receive the adulations of their fellow countrymen and the world. To placate internal pressures to identify at least some of the most deserving of these individuals, Soviet Premier Khrushchev pledged that “… we shall erect an obelisk to the people who have created the rocket and the artificial Earth satellites. We shall inscribe their glorious names in gold to make them known to posterity for centuries …” Khrushchev made this pronouncement in a speech in Bitterfeld, East Germany on 9 July 1959, just nine months after the launch of Sputnik-1 on 4 October 1957. It is quite possible that this Conquerors of the Cosmos monument is the one that Khrushchev was referring to. If so, then Khrushchev would have had extra confidence in his prediction because the plans for building such an obelisk were already underway before he made that speech. As it turns out, a contest was announced in March 1958 for the design of the best obelisk to honour the onset of the Space Era started by the launch of Sputnik-1.
Over 350 project designs were submitted and the final design was selected in March 1960. The winning design team consisted of architects M. O. Barshch and A. N. Kolchin and sculptor A. P. Faidysh. Construction of the monument started immediately after the design approval.2 The location chosen for this monument was just outside of the main entrance to the Exhibition of Achievements of the National Economy of the USSR. This permanent exhibition (abbreviated VDNKh from its name in Russian) was first formally opened in 1959 and consists of individual pavilions each containing exhibits related to one particular economic area. One of these facilities is well known to space enthusiasts as the “Cosmos Pavilion” which housed many exhibits and mock-ups related to the Soviet space programme. This monument location was obviously a good choice because it was close to where hundreds of thousands of Russians as well as foreign visitors were passing as they entered the VDNKh. Since many of these visitors would have taken the Moscow underground metro system to get to the exhibition, they would have exited that system’s VDNKh station and walked right past the monument site to get the exhibition’s main archway gate. The sight of this monument’s construction probably caused quite a bit of interest especially as the obelisk shape began to rise out of the foundation and start to stretch skyward. Well before the monument was completed, details about its design must have been released to the public. This is evident because the monument’s design quickly started to be an inspiration for philatelic cachet designers. See an example of this situation in the envelope cachet in Figure #2. These envelopes were used to make commemorative space covers postmarked as early as April 1960 just a month after the monument design approval. The monument’s design called for a wide, multi-stepped base with plenty of flat, granite surfaces on its sides where the names and exploits of the space conquerors could be chiseled out and coloured in gold. The side walls, near the front of the monument base, were to be carved to show three-dimensional, larger-than-life characterizations of
Fig 1 Monument image from 1967 unstamped postcard
Fig 2 First envelope’s cachet with the monument’s design
32
ORBIT ORBIT
Soviet men and women and the space hardware (e.g., rockets, radars, and satellites) they planned, built, and operated in the conquest of space. Figure#3 shows a portion of this artwork from a postcard image produced and issued during 1965.
The obelisk itself was to rise up out of this base in a narrowing sweep of simulated rocket exhaust culminating in a rocket that peaked out at 107 meters (350 feet) above ground level.2 Originally, the monument designers proposed covering the obelisk with smoked glass, presumably to simulate the smoky nature of the rocket exhaust. It was no less a person than the Soviet Chief Space Designer himself, Sergei P. Korolev, who, upon reviewing the monument plans, recommended that the obelisk surface be changed to polished titanium – the new space-age metal. Titanium was frequently used in rockets and spacecraft because of its strength, durability, and, most importantly, its relative weight when compared to steel (about 45%) for the equivalent structural strength.2
Another of Korolev’s design suggestions was to create a space museum in an underground area below the monument base. Unfortunately, work on completing this museum area and collecting of the artifacts to display in it, took a lot longer than anticipated. For this reason, the museum was not ready when the monument’s external configuration was completed and opened officially on 4 November 1964. Philatelic covers were created to commemorate this first monument opening. These covers were cancelled with a special postmark available at the Moscow post office. See examples of this “opening” postmark in Figure #4 (above) and one of the commemorative covers produced by the Moscow Collector Club in Figure #5. (right)
The museum part of the monument was finally completed in early 1981 and officially opened on 10 April 1981 just two days before the celebrations related to the 20th anniversary of Gagarin’s historic spaceflight in Vostok-1. This subterranean part of the monument is officially called the Memorial Museum of Cosmonautics. Unlike the original monument opening, there were no postmarks specifically designed to commemorate that event. Whether or not there are commemorative covers for that opening is not known. However, the special postmarks commemorating the 20th anniversary of Gagarin’s spaceflight do feature an outline of the monument. See an example of one of these official postmarks in Figure #6. (right) The first philatelic item to feature the actual memorial museum was a 1990 envelope cachet printed on an unstamped envelope. See a scan of that cachet in Figure #7. (below) This envelope cachet shows the museum’s statue of Cosmonaut Gagarin with his arms outstretched and surrounded by various Zodiac symbols. Despite limited philatelic coverage of the museum, it is much more than
Fig 3 Carvings of Yuri Gagarin (at the steps) and other space workers on Monument side
33
ORBIT
just a place to house some pretty space pictures and fanciful displays like that seen in this envelope cachet. It currently contains a wealth of historic and educational spaceflight information and memorabilia including video clips from actual space voyages and even philatelic commemorative covers and stamps. The museum also houses pieces of space hardware; perhaps many that were originally in the Cosmos Pavilion inside the nearby VDNKh. The space hardware displays in that pavilion have been significantly reduced in scope, since the collapse of the Soviet Union, mainly to make room for more commercially profitable displays. The Cosmos Pavilion is not the only nearby, space-related tourist attraction. Space enthusiasts will be especially interested in the fact that the Conquerors of the Cosmos monument is literally surrounded by a wide variety of space-related memorials and facilities. The nearest would be the seated statue of Russia’s “Father of Spaceflight”, K. E. Tsiolkovski which is situated just in front of the monument’s base as seen in Figure #1. Walking down the steps in front of Tsiolkovski’s statue leads to Cosmonaut Avenue (sometimes also called “Heroes Avenue”). Here visitors will find busts of many of the most important of the Soviet space conquerors including Cosmonauts Gagarin, Tereshkova, Leonov, and Belyayev as seen in the 1979 pre-stamped postcard image in Figure #8. (right) Other space heroes with bust memorials along this avenue include Chief Designer S. P. Korolev, Cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov, Academician Mstislav Keldysh, and rocket designer V. P. Glushko. Nearby streets are named after space pioneers N. I. Kibal’chich and F. A. Tsander as well as a wider boulevard named for Chief Designer Korolev. The Korolev boulevard runs a few blocks to the west from the monument and ends near an associated museum facility called the “Memorial Home-Museum of Academician Korolev”. That home is where Korolev lived up until his death in 1966. Rounding out the list of nearby space-related facilities are the Cosmos movie theatre about a block southwest of the monument and the Cosmos Hotel about a block to the east of the monument. Just as there is a wide variety of space-related attractions in the near vicinity of the Conquerors of the Cosmos monument, there is just as wide a variety of philatelic issues that used the monument’s unique configuration in the designs and photo images printed on them. The monument’s
unmistakable configuration was, after all, not only an icon of spaceflight but also a powerful symbol that clearly denoted the technological prowess of the Soviet Union. The Soviet propaganda machine made full use of this mental imagery and liberally included the monument’s image on philatelic issues commemorating everything from the anniversaries of events like the 1917 October Revolution and the founding of the Soviet Armed Forces to holidays like May Day and New Years. A recent survey of philatelic issues (as well as some related, but back-of-the-book type productions) found over 300 such items with the Conquerors of the Cosmos monument image in their designs. The largest numbers of these philatelic types were postmarks, followed by unstamped postcards, then pre-stamped envelopes, pre-stamped postcards, and unstamped envelopes. An electronic version of an illustrated checklist created as a result of that survey is available from this author. The Soviet designers choice to make this monument 107 metres tall is, perhaps, a curious one. That height, equal to about 350 feet, just happens to be about the same height, i.e., 363 feet, that the US Saturn 5 rocket stood on the launch pad. This was probably not a factor in the chosen dimensions but did make for a curious comparison by author Nick Engler in an article he wrote titled “Explorations”. In this article, Engler muses about the mental images monument viewers might come away with when comparing the Soviet obelisk soaring skyward towards space versus the Saturn 5 memorial at the Kennedy Space Center where this mighty rocket lies prone on the ground. Which one of these two, he asks, “… evokes the feeling of progress?” Progress in space was always the forefront rationale for the designers and caretakers of the Conquerors of the Cosmos monument. In the years following its opening, descriptions of each new Soviet cosmic achievement were carved into the monument base and coloured, as
Fig 9 Panoramic view showing VDNKh metro station in the foreground and its pavilions in the distance
34
ORBIT
Khrushchev had predicted, in gold. After nearly 50 years, these inscriptions and the addition of upgrades like the memorial museum and the memorial busts clustered near the monument’s base, have preserved a remarkable record of some of mankind’s most important space accomplishments and the people who helped make it happen. Thanks to these types of upgrades and the obelisks innovative and inspiring design, this monument continues to be “the place” that space enthusiasts from around the world can come and be awed.
References: 1. Harford, James, Korolev, New York, 1997, p. 91. 2. Solomko, Yu. M. (museum director), preface to the book Memorial Museum of Cosmonautics, Moscow, 2001, p. 3. 3. Great Soviet Encyclopedia, Macmillan, Inc., New York, 1972, p. 121. 4. Omni, July 1981 edition, pp. 30-1.
A Selection of stamps and cancels showing the Conquerors of the Cosmos Obelisk For a free illustrated checklist of philatelic media showing the obelisk contact Jim
at [email protected] See opposite for some example illustrations taken from his checklist.
35
ORBIT ORBIT
A page (#34) selected from Jim Reichmann’s checklist of philatelic media showing the obelisk
36
ORBIT
From Magnet to Multi-Media John Beenen continues his history of telecommunications Radio Grows Up
(Fessenden Canada 1987, Y1009)
With the invention of radio we rapidly approach the era of wireless communication.
The first radios of Marconi and Popov were very primitive. Not only were they limited to sending Morse signals but such signals also were very weak and
sensitive to atmospheric interference. Also the use of power was very inefficient.
The first improvement was introduced by the Canadian Professor Reginald Fessenden, who developed the principle of the carrier wave in 1902.
Superposed on a constant carrier wave electrical waves are transmitted in the frequency of sound waves. This is the principle of Amplitude Modulation (AM). Via this he was able to transmit voice and music which on December 24th 1906 could be heard from the loudspeakers of Brant Rock. After a short introduction he told the Christmas narration according to Luke and played ‘O Holy Night’ on the violin. Another source speaks about two music selections, a poem and a short narrative. Independent of Marconi Fessenden also invented the tuning on different stations (1903) and later also the so-called ‘heterodyne’ effect, by which the receiving wave is combined with a wave slightly differing from the carrier wave, thus the resulting wave can be amplified more easily. Fessenden also invented the Sonar system for the determination of the depth of water, the radio compass, signalling systems for submarines, the smoke screen for military operations, and a turbo-electric motor for battleships. Other related inventions came thick and fast. First the design of the coherer became subject of much investigation and became improved by: Marconi (magnetic detector, 1902), Fessenden (thermic receiver, 1902; liquid detector, 1903) and finally the crystal detector by professor Karl Braun (1850-1918) in 1906.
(Galena (Glance), Spain 1994, Sc2763d) The first crystal was carborundum, a carbide silica compound, quickly replaced by silica (G.W.Pickart), a lead
compound (galena), iron pyrite or glauber salt, a crystal made from sodium sulphate. The best were in practice comparable to the liquid detector of Fessenden, but much easier to handle. Because such materials showed properties roughly midway between conductors and isolators they are known as ‘semiconductors’. John Ambrose Fleming (1849-1945) In 1904 this Englishman patented a glass vacuum tube in which electrodes coming from the hot cathode only moved in one direction through the vacuum to the anode and this was called ‘diode’. That Fleming had the idea to use a glass bulb is not surprising as he had worked ten years for the Edison Company which developed electric lighting. As we have already mentioned, Fleming also worked as an advisor for the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company and solved many problems for him with regard to tuning.
Lee de Forest (1873-1961) (Progress in Electronics USA 1973, Y996). After two years the ‘diode’ was improved by Lee de Forest (1873-1961) by inserting a third electrode in the shape of a grid between the cathode and anode, the ‘triode’. He called it the ‘Audion tube’. The resulting triode or three-electrode vacuum tube could be used as an amplifier for electrical signals and, equally important, as a fast (for its time) electronic switching element. When the negative potential of the grid decreases, more electrons can pass through the tube to realize an amplification. As we will see, from 1913 De Forest was involved in several law suits around his patents. De Forest also is known as the inventor of the sound movie (c.1920), by which together with the pictures the sound are synchronised. Perhaps De Forest had the idea not completely from himself but took it from a former colleague of the Yale University, Theodore Willard Case, and some German inventors, hence, also this claim is not completely non-controversial. In 1915 the engineers from AT&T succeeded in transferring voice from the United States to Paris, but the quality was
37
ORBIT
that bad that they decided to put more efforts in short distance communication. The first years of the twenties were characterized by a tremendous increase in radio stations, as noted in a previous chapter. Edwin Armstrong (1890-1954)
(Armstrong, CSSR 1959, M1175) But let us return to the invention of the triode or Audion. In the beginning its sensitivity was great, but the device was not
very stable. Only with some structural improvements . by Edwin Armstrong (1890-1954) among others in 1913 could it be applied generally especially in areas where sensitivity is of the utmost importance. As far as I know Armstrong is depicted on two stamps: the one shown above and USA: 1983 Yvert 1498. Armstrong’s system comes to the invention that returned part of the current to the third electrode. This regenerative system gave a huge improvement of the sound and as a matter of fact became the first real radio amplifier. During his military service in France Armstrong also improved the heterodyne effect invented by Fessenden, which had not been much applied until then. The improved system became known as ‘superheterodyne circuit’ and proved to be so good that it is still used in present radio and TV equipment. Unfortunately these improvements led to endless law suits with Lee De Forest and AT&T in the period of 1922-1923. When he was busy attempting to solve the continuous problem of ‘noise’ in 1933 Armstrong found a complete new system for the treatment of radio waves by which the amplitude of the wave is held constant but the frequency is modulated (FM). Its introduction was delayed due to the outbreak of WW II and opposition of several American radio corporations. Armstrong himself could not stand the resistance and opposition against his inventions and committed suicide on January 31st 1954 by jumping of a balcony in New York. After 21 law suits his widow finally received $21M dollars. But it was only after a long time that FM surpassed the classical AM system certainly for local communication. Charles Proteus Steinmetz (1865-1923)
(Steinmetz, VS 1983, Y1197) Born a German Charles Proteus Steinmetz was a son of a railway lithographer from Breslau, presently Wroclaw in Poland.
Steinmetz was handicapped by having a birth defect and being a hunchback. As a student he belonged to the hard core of the socialistic movement and after some of his comrades were arrested he left for Switzerland. However that country proved not to be friendly and he went on to the United States. But here also they were not eager to welcome a man without money, a socialist, handicapped and speaking no English. So only because a rich friend was willing to stand surety for him, one of the most brilliant American electro-technicians was able to settle in America. He started to work in the factory of also a German refugee, Rudolph Eickemeyer, who manufactured machines for making hats. Steinmetz established a small laboratory at the factory, where he did much of his scientific research. His experiments on power losses in the magnetic materials used in electrical machinery led to his first important work, the law of hysteresis. This law deals with the power loss that occurs in all electrical devices when magnetic action is converted to unusable heat. Until that time the power losses in motors, generators, transformers and other electrical powered machines could be realised only after they were built. Now engineers could calculate in advance and minimize losses of electric power due to magnetism in their designs before starting the construction of such machines. The law was published on December 8th 1891 and the importance was immediately recognized. His second contribution was the development of a practical method for making calculations concerning alternating current circuits. Previously, also such circuits only could be tested in practice.
In this way he simplified an extremely complicated and barely understood field so that the average engineer could work with alternating current. This accomplishment was largely responsible for the rapid progress made in the commercial introduction of alternating-current apparatus.
(Edison, Afars&Issas 1977)
Thomas Edison founded the General Electric Company in 1886 and wanted to hire Steinmetz which he could do only by purchasing Eickemeyer’s
company as a whole. Steinmetz moved to the headquarters in Schenectady, New York. He was charged with the company’s proposal for building the generators at the new Niagara Falls power station, the work finally being granted to Tesla and Westinghouse.
He studied very short time changes in electrical circuits, important because they would open the gate to protection of power stations against lightning. During the course of this investigation he designed a generator which could generate a current of 10.000 Ampère and over 100.000 Volts.
38
ORBIT
Steinmetz possessed some eccentricities and liked to make his calculations sitting in a boat drifting to and fro on the Mohawk River. He worked at the properties of electrical isolation materials and arc-light. In his house he experimented with the effects of lightning and synthetic fertilizer. He never appeared without his inseparable cigar. He was not married but lived together with a family of his assistant and wife and three children.
From 1903 on he took the position as Professor of Electrical Engineering and Applied Physics at the Union College in Schenectady and made it one of the major institutions in the country. He was faithful to his socialistic principles and on a local level supported the education of less blessed and handicapped people. At Christmas he offered little presents to all orphans in town.
In 1920 he founded his own company the Steinmetz Electric Motor Car Co. in order to produce electrical cars. In 1922 his first electrical car climbed a steep hill in Brooklyn and in October he claimed to have produced a five-passenger coupe. His ambitious plans however, failed because of his death in 1923 and the company went down.
(Hoover, USA 1965, Y786)
After his death President Herbert Hoover collected $25.000 to change his house into a museum but the town and the state could not agree about the restoration and the house was demolished in 1938.
One fantastic anecdote elates to Steinmetz. At the early stage of his work at GE somebody asked him to solve a
large breakdown in a generator. Steinmetz found it hard to solve but spent some days in the neighbourhood of the generator together with all its technical drawings.
After that the engineers found a large cross somewhere on the wall of the generator and the request to remove some windings of the wire. After that the generator worked again. His fee was agreed at $1000, but GE requested a bill. This arrived a couple of days later:
Making a cross on the wall: $ 1
Knowing where to put the cross: $ 999 !
The Transistor One vitally important invention comes now in the journey towards the application of wireless communication in space. That is the ‘transistor’. The ‘transistor’ was invented between November 17th and December 23rd 1947 by Walter Brattain, John Bardeen and William Shockley of Bell Laboratories. The word is a combination of the words ‘transfer’, ‘transconductance’ and ‘resistor’ or ‘varistor’ and was invented by Bardeen, although other sources give the credits to Dr.John R.Pierce, later well-known as the
developer of the first Telstar communication satellite, who maintained it was a combination of the words ‘transconductance’’ and ‘transresistance’. However, those three scientists were in fact not the real inventors but made just an operational version from an earlier invention. Those first patents going into the direction of the transistor were already registered in Germany in 1928 by the physicist Julius Edgar Lilienfeld (1881-1963), but he did not publish his invention and the idea was ignored. Another patent was granted in 1934 to the German physicist Dr.Oskar Heil (1908-1994). On December 16th 1947 Shockley, Bardeen and Brattain succeeded in building the first practical point-contact transistor. This work followed from their war-time efforts to produce extremely pure germanium ‘crystal’ mixer diodes, used in radar units and microwave radar receivers. Early tube-based technology did not switch enough for this role, leading the team to use solid state diodes instead. They found that a germanium set in contact with two wires two-thousandths of an inch apart was amplifying. Later, especially via Stockley’s work it was replaced by a pressed crystal made from thin layers of germanium and silicon, the ‘junction’ transistor. Since then the transistor is a three terminal, solid state electronic device. In a three terminal device we can control electric current or voltage between two of the terminals by applying an electric current or voltage to the third terminal. With a three terminal transistor we also can make an electric switch, which can be controlled by another electric switch. By cascading these switches (switches that control switches that control switches etc.) we can build up very complicated logic circuits. The story of the development of the transistor in December 1947 is issued in a fine article: “The Miracle Month; The invention of the first transistor November 17 – December 23, 1947” (http://www.pbs.org/transistor/background/events/miraclemo.html) Bardeen and Brattain patented the device, Shockley the effect of the transistor and the transistor amplifier.
(Brattain, Gabon 1995; Bardeen, Guinee 2001; Shockley, St.Vincent 1991).
39
ORBIT
ASTEROIDS Some Bits and Pieces
In 1956 Bardeen, Brattain and Shockley recevied the Nobel Prize for Physics for their discovery.
(Progress in Electronics USA:1973 Yvert 995) Starting from 1954 one of the first applications was in the telephone and head phones. Also already in
1954 IBM constructed the first computer without vacuum tubes and based upon 2000 transistors. Thus the first transistor radio appeared on the market with an immediate and massive success. Throughout the years the transistor became smaller and smaller, more reliable and cheaper.
(Integrated circuit, VS 1999) As said, the transistor also could be used as a switch, controlled by another switch etc. Building together such elements very complicated circuits could be built which finally came together as the ‘integrated circuit’, in 1958-59 developed by Jack St.Clair Kilby (1923-2005) of Texas Instruments and Robert Noyce (1927-1990) of Fairchild Camera. These logic circuits can be built very compactly on a silicon chip with a million transistors per square centimetre. Between 1960 and 1990 the number of transistors per unit area has been doubling every 1.5 years. This progression is called ‘Moore’s law’ after Gordon Moore (1929) one of the early pioneers of integrated circuits and together with Noyce founder of the Intel Corporation in 1968. In 1971 Intel announced the introduction of world’s first single chip processor, Intel 4004, a ‘microprocessor’. It is a chip were all parts that made a computer (central processing unit, memory, input and output controls) think are ‘integrated’ on one small chip. Programming intelligence into inanimate objects had become possible.
The Pioneer 10 spacecraft launched on March 2nd 1972 used the 4004 microprocessor. Although after a violent patent fight about the rights on the integrated circuit Noyce in
1969 won, it was Kilby who received the Nobel Prize in Physics for its invention in 2000.
Literature http://en.wikpedia/wiki/transistor Transistor http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/ Inventors of the modern computer http://library.thinkquest.org/C006224/historydescripthtml.html, Bell laboratories and the transistor http://nobelprice.org/physics/educational/transistor/history/, The transistor in a century of electronic http://www.pbs.org/transistor/background/events/miraclemo.htm, The miracle month http://www.ti.com/corp/docs/ About Jack: So, What if he had gone on vacation?
LROC Photos See some of the new NASA Moon Landing site photos referred to in the Editorial to Orbit 91 on Ian Ripath’s website, which I commend to you….
http://www.ianridpath.com/moon/moon17.htm where there is also a section about exploring the Moon on stamps
http://www.ianridpath.com/moon/moonstamps.htm
FIP Astrophilately Our Russian member Igor Rodin has provided the following links for your interest, again which are well very worth looking at ….
Seminar on "Space Philately” in Saint-Petersburg:http://astrophilatelist.com/index/seminar_on_space_philately_in_saint_petersburg/0-1017
Informal meeting in Moscow in the frames of the 26th Planetary Congress of Association of Space Explorers: http://astrophilatelist.com/news/fip_section_for_astrophilately/2011-10-04-399
If you have some interest in Astrophilately material related to the last in the history American Space Shuttle flight, please, look here: http://astrophilatelist.com/news/the_last_space_shuttle_flight_in_astrophilately/2011-10-21-407
New Material from Alec Bartos
See the latest work by our Romanian member and well known space stamp designer on his website. A 70X50 cm mixed media artwork that includes a Apollo 11 maxicard designed by me in 2009
for the Romanian Post.
http://alecbartos.com/?p=853 Feel free to comment
40
ORBIT ORBIT
