Moonwalkers

 

Our ORBIT Editor Jeff Dugdale tells the stories of the only 12 men who have ever walked on the moon.
This article first appeared in Stamp Magazine (September 2001 issue) and is reprinted here with permission from Jeff.

Between July 1969 and December 1972 just 12 Americans walked on the Moon — a stunning achievement brought about by the bravery of a group of astronauts and the genius of a team of rocket scientists led by Wernher von Braun, who had formerly built V2 rockets for Hitler. Today, probably only pub trivia quiz experts and astrophilatelists know the names of all 12, and the Moon is a largely forgotten target. Putting men on Mars is considered a more important objective for today’s space programmes.

At the time of the first Moonwalk, by Armstrong and Aldrin of Apollo XI on July 21, 1969, their achievement was considered one of the greatest events in the history of the world and was celebrated with a plethora of stamps. Within three years, NASA’s planned sequence of at least 10 Moon Landing had been curtailed to six, and one country (Mauritania, SG 417) celebrated Apollo 17 by just issuing an overprint on an ostrich stamp! Sic transit gloria lunae!

Apollo XI - Armstrong and Aldrin

The most famous Moonwalking stamp is SG A1367 (left) of the US (Scott C76 to US philatelists). Designed by Paul Calle, it was released on September 9, 1969, and depicts the moment when Neil Armstrong stepped off The Eagle — his spider-like landing craft — onto the Moon, just a few seconds before he fluffed his lines. Armstrong’s secret intended words were ‘That’s a small Step for a man, one giant leap for mankind’.

But what he did say, ‘That’s a small step for man, one giant leap for mankind’, made no differential sense at all. The moment overwhelmed him and he made a small error! The famous US stamp which first marks this occasion has been quoted on other Moon landing stamps from around the world at least a dozen times. Because the event was unique, stamp designers had plenty of scope to be innovative in their compositions to mark the first Moon landing, but two particular symbolic images dominate the Apollo XI pages of space stamp collectors — the first footprint, and the US flag.

When US Postal Services decided on an image to mark the Moon landings on its ‘Celebrate the Century: 1960s’ they didn’t chose an image of Neil Armstrong (there were no still photos of him on the surface of the Moon — as Commander of the mission he had the camera) or The Eagle, but of the footprint and many variations on this topic exist.

By international agreement, no country could claim the Moon as its property, but it was the US that had accomplished the feat and so had won the greatest prize of the ‘Space Race’. Only after ‘Glasnost’ did the Soviets reveal an active, but much troubled, Moon landing programme, which was abandoned once Apollo XI was successful. So it was ‘Old Glory’, not the flag of the U.N., that was raised on the Moon’s surface. Image after image of the Stars and Stripes appears on Apollo XI stamps or later anniversaries.

Other stamps show a concession to the universality of the occasion — the grandiose sentiment of the Apollo Mission statement, ‘We came in peace for all Mankind’ — but again the signatures on the plaque left behind are all US, making a very strong political point.

A significant proportion of stamps for this mission and others in the Apollo programme were produced in the 1970s by tiny Trucial States in the Persian Gulf, which were of very dubious philatelic value and rarely found postally used. Most stamps from states such as Ras Al Khaima, Ajman, Manama, Umm Al Qiwain and Fujeira in any space collection are likely to be CTOd as they were produced for the stamp market, much as space stamps for states in the former Soviet Union are today, such as Tadjikistan, Kirghizistan, Turkmenistan, Kalmoukia and Abkhasia.

The Trucial States issues aren’t recognised in Gibbons catalogues, but are in specialist space catalogues like the Belgian WEEBAU and the French Lollini series of space stamp reference works. They are very colourful additions to collections. Stamps for Apollo XI number hundreds, but for the later missions there is a remarkable falling away.

Apollo XII - Conrad and Bean

Within five months of Apollo XI, the US was back on the Moon — in contrast, landing in The Ocean of Storms instead of the Tranquility Base explored by the first two men. Charles (Pete) Conrad, tragically killed in a motorcycle accident in 1999, set out to prove that a military man such as he could do a better job than the civilian Armstrong by effecting a pin-point landing in his Intrepid lander within a few hundred yards of the target – another spacecraft, Surveyor, which had landed on the Moon three years before. One mission objective was to cut off part of the unmanned craft for analysis back home, regarding exposure to lunar winds and the lack of atmosphere on the moon.

Whilst many of the Apollo XI stamps were based on photos taken by Armstrong, the designs of Apollo XII issues were seriously handicapped by an unfortunate few seconds in which the fourth man on the Moon, Alan Bean – now a very respected space artist – inadvertently pointed his TV camera at the Sun for a few seconds and ruined its technological functions!

Thus most Apollo XII stamps show artist impressions of experiments by the two astronauts. Whilst the scope of the mission was more ambitious, and the time spent on Lunar EVA (Extra Vehicular Activity) significantly longer than that of the Apollo XI crew; the number of issues is appreciably smaller, coming from little over a dozen territories.

Apollo XIV - Shepard and Mitchell

The crew of Apollo XIII (April 1970) famously didn’t land on the Moon and were extremely lucky to get hack to Earth, so a year later the fifth and sixth men to land were Alan Shepard and Edgar Mitchell. Shepard, who like fellow ‘Moonwalker’ Charles Conrad also died in 1999, had been the US’s first man in space, although his sub-orbital down range flight in May 1961, within three weeks of Gagarin’s single orbit, was a pale response to the Soviet achievement. Shepard had had major health problems and only by undergoing a very risky operation on his inner ear had he regained flight status, which he lost soon after the maiden 1961 flight.

In the intervening period he had been one of two men — the other was Deke Slayton — who selected astronauts for all the flights of the Gemini (two man) programme and there was a suspicion that Shepard had pulled a few strings to get his place as Commander of Apollo XIV

Many philatelic images of this mission can be distinguished from others because they depict the use of a piece of hardware no other mission employed, the space cart. This two-wheel buggy meant that portage of specimens collected on the walkers two EVAs was much easier, and they could walk much further unburdened by ‘souvenirs’. One other event peculiar to this mission was Shepard’s miles and miles ‘golf shot’.

Although he had not taken a club with him, the golf ball he put down and struck with a collecting scoop went a very long way. This event is arguably captured on some stamps, though this is debatable. Issues for the third Moon landing were slightly up on those for Apollo XII with nearly 20 territories involved in the celebration, including Oman and Liberia.

Apollo XV – Scott and Irwin

The last three Moonwalking missions were all serviced by the Lunar Rover, so you need to look carefully for caption or mission pitch to distinguish them. The Lunar Rover was a fold-down automobile complete with dustguards, which self-evidently increased the physical scope of the first mission to use it, and each of the final two missions further increased the mileage covered in their EVAs. In fact, Scott and Irwin spent almost three days on the Moon, and performed 3 EVA, including ventures into mountainous areas that they could not have walked into.

David Scott, the Commander, was famously dismissed from the Astronaut Corps on the first anniversary of his return from this mission as the Apollo 15 crew had smuggled 400 space covers with them. It was reported in newspapers in July 1972 that a West German stamp dealer had sold 100 of these at £570 each. Each of the three-crew members had been expected to gain as much as £2,700 from the sale of covers.

However they then declined to accept any money, acknowledging that their actions had been improper. Jim Irwin also resigned from the Astronaut Corps, and Worden was also moved out of the select group and made no more flights. Although Scott’s astronaut career was over his name appears as Technical Adviser in the credits of some space films such as Apollo 13 and the Tom Hanks-produced 1998 TV series From The Earth to The Moon.

Apollo XVI - Young and Duke

John Young — still active on NASA’s payroll as adviser, international ambassador and lecturer — has gained a formidable reputation as a non-signer of autographs on space covers, and returned to the Moon three years after circling it in the company of Tom Stafford and Eugene Cernan in Apollo X. This was a dress rehearsal for the Apollo XI by taking the lander ‘Snoopy’ to within 47,000 feet of the surface in May 1969.

Apollo 16 set up many records, with Young and Charlie Duke spending 71 hours on the surface, including three Lunar EVAs of almost 20 hours duration in total. However, the mission was plagued with problems, and at one point caused Mission Control as much anxiety as Apollo 13 had regarding their safety. Events during Moon orbit no 12 caused their first attempt to land to be called off, and the lander was ordered to re-rendezvous with the Command Module Caspar. Apollo 16 eventually landed six hours later than planned in the Descartes region of the Moon — a heavily cratered area — and video footage of the crew in their lunar rover shows them climbing high into the hills in flamboyant style, showering themselves and car with moondust.

A famous photo of Young shows him beside the lander Orion, saluting, whilst several feet off the ground, having jumped into the air! During his time on the Moon, Young was informed that he was to be a major player in the new Space Shuttle project and he eventually flew the first shuttle (STS-1) with Bob Crippen on April 12, 1981. Young holds the world record along with three other US astronauts, of six successful launches into space and may yet make a seventh.

Apollo XVII - Cernan and Schmitt

Whilst the original plans for the Apollo Missions had foreseen an extended series of Moon Landings political pressures due to of lack of funds and public boredom with the achievements, meant this mission became the last. Commander Eugene Cernan, like John Young, was returning to the Moon and following an unusual night time launch on December 7,1972 he set his lander Challenger down in the mountainous Taurus—Littrow area four days later and then spent three days and five hours on the surface.

The original crew hadn’t included the civilian scientist Harrison Schmitt, but because the series was about to end NASA’s team of geologists won the fight to have a real scientist on board a Moon Landing crew. All the other ‘Moonwalkers’ had had extensive training in what to look for whilst picking up specimens but couldn’t have the in-depth knowledge of a trained scientist like Schmitt. So astronaut Joe Engle was bumped from the flight schedule and Schmitt go to go to the Moon. His expertise paid off, and he made a number of important finds.

The highlight of the trip was the discovery of The Orange Rock (seen on an issue from Togo), whose geological significance with respect to the age and formation of the Moon fascinated Harrison Schmitt. Towards the end of their time on the surface, Cernan unveiled a plaque similar to that on the base of the Apollo XI lander and echoing its words: ‘May the spirit of peace in which we came be reflected in the lives of all mankind’.

A similar number of issues (around a dozen) commemorate Apollo’s 16 and 17, but the number issued in their immediate aftermath was very small, scarcely reaching double figures each time. The major anniversaries of Apollo XI, notably the 25th and 3Oth, provided opportunities for stamp designers to celebrate all the Apollo flights in the programme, and no doubt they will continue to do so in future.

 

 

By Jeff Dugdale

 

 

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