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Astrophilately
Astrophilately is a branch of philately which deals with the collection of stamps and postmarked envelopes related to spaceflight. It is the intersection of space and postal history. Covers cancelled on the date and at a post office near the controlling agency are used in postal exhibits to share the development and conquest of the cosmos. Scope Topics of interest include postage stamps, cancellations, and covers connected to various projects. Examples include rocket mail, dating from as early as the 1928, and mail actually carried on space flights, a practice that began with Project Apollo missions, and has continued since then. Specialists distinguish astrophilately from topical collecting with a space theme; astrophilatelic items are those with direct connections to space missions, whether or not they include any special pictorial depiction. The Fédération Internationale de Philatélie has a Section for Astrophilately. Included are covers and cards cancelled at launc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Apollo 15 Postage Stamp Scandal
In June 1972, a scandal involving the crew of NASA's Apollo 15 became publicly known. The crew—David Scott, Alfred Worden, and James Irwin—had carried about 400 unauthorized cover (philately), postal covers (stamped and postmarked envelopes) into space and to the Moon's surface on the Apollo Lunar Module, Lunar Module ''Falcon''. Some of the envelopes were sold at high prices by West German stamp dealer Hermann Sieger, and are known as "Sieger covers". Scott, Worden, and Irwin all agreed to take payments for carrying the covers. Although they returned the money, they were reprimanded by NASA. Amid much press coverage of the incident, the astronauts were called before a closed session of a United States Senate, Senate committee and never flew in space again. The three astronauts and an acquaintance, Horst Eiermann, had agreed to have the covers made and taken into space. Each astronaut was to receive about . Scott arranged to have the covers postmarked on the morning of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Philately
Philately (; ) is the study of postage stamps and postal history. It also refers to the collection and appreciation of stamps and other philatelic products. While closely associated with stamp collecting and the study of postage, it is possible to be a philatelist without owning any stamps. For instance, the stamps being studied may be very rare or reside only in museums. Etymology The word "philately" is the English transliteration of the French "", coined by Georges Herpin in 1864. Herpin stated that stamps had been collected and studied for the previous six or seven years and a better name was required for the new hobby than ''timbromanie'' (roughly "stamp mania"), which was disliked.Williams, L.N. & M. ''Fundamentals of Philately''. State College: The American Philatelic Society, 1971, p. 20. The alternative terms "timbromania", "timbrophily", and "timbrology" gradually fell out of use as ''philately'' gained acceptance during the 1860s. Herpin took the Greek root word φ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fédération Internationale De Philatélie
The Fédération Internationale de Philatélie (FIP) is the world federation for philately (the study of postage stamps and postal history). Based in Zürich, Switzerland, the FIP was founded on 18 June 1926. Aims The FIP was founded in 1926 when a small number of European federations came together to found a worldwide organisation''.'' The FIP promotes stamp collecting and philately. The FIP works to promote philately in developing countries, in Asia and in industrialised countries, where it appears to be stagnating. It coordinates contact between philatelic organisations in different countries. Every year the FIP provides patronage to a number of major stamp exhibitions. The FIP Congress takes place annually during one of the international exhibitions that it has endorsed. In 2004, FIP ran its first "World Stamp Competition" in Singapore and selected Tel Aviv for the second competition in 2008. The competitions involved national teams and philatelic jurors. In 2008, FIP sele ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rocket Mail
Rocket mail is the delivery of mail by rocket or missile. The rocket lands by deploying an internal parachute upon arrival. It has been attempted by various organizations in many countries, with varying levels of success. It has never become widely seen as being a viable option for delivering mail, due to the cost of the schemes and numerous failures. The collection of philatelic material ("stamps") used for (and depicting) rocket mail is part of a specialist branch of aerophilately known as astrophilately. Pioneers German author Heinrich von Kleist was the first to suggest using rockets to deliver mail. While editor of the ''Berliner Abendblätter'', he wrote an article published on 12 October 1810 which proposed using fixed artillery batteries to fire shells filled with letters to predetermined landing locations of soft ground. Kleist calculated that a network of batteries could transmit a letter from Berlin to Breslau, away, in half a day. Later in the 19th century, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United States Postal Service
The United States Postal Service (USPS), also known as the Post Office, U.S. Mail, or simply the Postal Service, is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the executive branch of the federal government of the United States, United States federal government responsible for providing mail, postal service in the United States, its insular areas and Compact of Free Association, associated states. It is one of a few government agencies Postal Clause, explicitly authorized by the Constitution of the United States. As of March 29, 2024, the USPS has 525,377 career employees and nearly 114,623 pre-career employees. The USPS has a monopoly on traditional Letter (message), letter delivery within the U.S. and operates under a Universal service, universal service obligation (USO), both of which are defined across a broad set of legal mandates, which obligate it to provide uniform price and quality across the entirety of its service area. The Post ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Airmail
Airmail (or air mail) is a mail transport service branded and sold on the basis of at least one leg of its journey being by air. Airmail items typically arrive more quickly than surface mail, and usually cost more to send. Airmail may be the only option for sending mail to some destinations, such as overseas, if the mail cannot wait the time it would take to arrive by ship, sometimes weeks. The Universal Postal Union adopted comprehensive rules for airmail at its 1929 Postal Union Congress in London. Since the official language of the Universal Postal Union is French, airmail items worldwide are often marked ', literally: "by airplane". For about the first half century of its existence, transportation of mail via aircraft was usually categorized and sold as a separate service (airmail) from surface mail. Today it is often the case that mail service is categorized and sold according to transit time alone, with mode of transport (land, sea, air) being decided on the back end ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Soviet Space Program
The Soviet space program () was the state space program of the Soviet Union, active from 1951 until the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. Contrary to its competitors (NASA in the United States, the European Space Agency in Western Europe, and the Ministry of Aerospace Industry in China), which had their programs run under single coordinating agencies, the Soviet space program was divided between several internally competing OKB, design bureaus led by Sergei Korolev, Korolev, Kerim Kerimov, Kerimov, Mstislav Keldysh, Keldysh, Mikhail Yangel, Yangel, Valentin Glushko, Glushko, Vladimir Chelomey, Chelomey, Viktor Makeyev, Makeyev, Boris Chertok, Chertok and Information Satellite Systems Reshetnev, Reshetnev. Several of these bureaus were subordinated to the Ministry of General Machine-Building. The Soviet space program served as an important marker of claims by the Soviet Union to its superpower status. Soviet rocketry, Soviet investigations into rocketry began with the fo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the federal government of the United States, US federal government responsible for the United States's civil list of government space agencies, space program, aeronautics research and outer space, space research. National Aeronautics and Space Act, Established in 1958, it succeeded the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) to give the American space development effort a distinct civilian orientation, emphasizing peaceful applications in space science. It has since led most of America's space exploration programs, including Project Mercury, Project Gemini, the 1968–1972 Apollo program missions, the Skylab space station, and the Space Shuttle. Currently, NASA supports the International Space Station (ISS) along with the Commercial Crew Program and oversees the development of the Orion (spacecraft), Orion spacecraft and the Sp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
STS-8
STS-8 was the eighth NASA Space Shuttle mission and the third flight of the Space Shuttle ''Challenger''. It launched on August 30, 1983, and landed on September 5, 1983, conducting the first night launch and night landing of the Space Shuttle program. It also carried the first African-American astronaut, Guion Bluford. The mission successfully achieved all of its planned research objectives, but was marred by the subsequent discovery that a solid-fuel rocket booster had almost malfunctioned catastrophically during the launch. The mission's primary payload was INSAT-1B, an Indian communications and weather observation satellite, which was released by the orbiter and boosted into a geostationary orbit. The secondary payload, replacing a delayed NASA communications satellite, was a four-metric-ton dummy payload, intended to test the use of the shuttle's Canadarm (remote manipulator system). Scientific experiments carried on board ''Challenger'' included the environmental te ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Space Shuttle Challenger
Space Shuttle ''Challenger'' (OV-099) was a Space Shuttle orbiter manufactured by Rockwell International and operated by NASA. Named after HMS Challenger (1858), the commanding ship of a Challenger expedition, nineteenth-century scientific expedition that traveled the world, ''Challenger'' was the second Space Shuttle orbiter to fly into space after ''Space Shuttle Columbia, Columbia'', and launched on STS-6, its maiden flight in April 1983. It was destroyed in January 1986 soon after launch Space Shuttle Challenger disaster, in a disaster that killed all seven crewmembers aboard. Initially manufactured as a Test article (aerospace), test article not intended for spaceflight, it was used for ground testing of the Space Shuttle orbiter's structural design. However, after NASA found that their original plan to upgrade ''Space Shuttle Enterprise, Enterprise'' for spaceflight would be more expensive than upgrading ''Challenger'', the orbiter was pressed into operational service in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
NASA Recovery Ship
The NASA recovery ships are two ships, the and the , that were tasked with retrieving spent Space Shuttle Solid Rocket Booster, Solid Rocket Boosters (SRBs) following the launch of Space Shuttle missions. Although owned by NASA, the ships were operated by Space Flight Operations contractor United Space Alliance. Following the end of the Space Shuttle program, and therefore booster recovery, NASA transferred both vessels to the United States Department of Transportation, Department of Transportation. Design and construction Both ships were built at Atlantic Marine Shipyard on Fort George Island, Florida, and delivered in January 1981 to their original owner, United Technologies Inc. They are propelled by two main engines providing a total of 2,900 horsepower (2.2 MW), and are capable of towing each. Two auxiliary engines with Jacuzzi-like jets (similar to those found in Naval riverine craft) as well as the extra caution taken by the crew allow the ships to coast up the Banana Ri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
