Orbit issue 81 (March 2009) by kiwi36

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Editorial

ISSN 0953 1599 THE JOURNAL OF THE ASTRO SPACE STAMP SOCIETY Issue No 81 March 2009

Did I say “Copernicus”….Sorry, actually I meant…

Patron:

Cosmonaut Georgi Grechko, Hero of the Soviet Union

In my Editorial for the January issue I referred to the 400th anniversary of major discoveries by Copernicus. This was a lapse of concentration—I should have said Galileo, of course—sorry.

COMMITTEE Chair :

Margaret Morris, 55 Canniesburn Drive, Bearsden, Glasgow G61 1RX (E-mail: MMorris671@aol.com)

This year’s Europa theme—Astronomy : see back page—is partly inspired by this year being 400 on from when the great Italian scientist whom Einstein referred to as “The Father of Modern Science” built his first telescopes (shown in this 1983 Italian issue) and used them to observe the Moon, Jupiter and Venus.

Hon. Secretary: Brian J.Lockyer, 21, Exford Close,Weston-Super-Mare, Somerset BS23 4RE (E-mail : brian.lockyer@tesco.net)

Compiler of Checklist / Hon Treasurer / Postal Packet Organiser Harvey Duncan,16, Begg Avenue, Falkirk, Scotland FK1 5DL (E-mail: duncan1975@btinternet.com)

Orbit : Editor

Jeff Dugdale, Glebe Cottage, Speymouth, Mosstodloch, Moray. Scotland IV32 7LE (E-mail: jefforbited@aol.com)

Webmaster

Derek Clarke, 36 Cherryfield Road, Walkington, Dublin 12 (E-mail: dclarke@utvinternet.com)

Postal Auction Organiser:

David Saunders, 42 Burnet Road, Bradwell, Great Yarmouth. NR31 8SL.

Overseas Representatives:

Australia: Charles Bromser, 37 Bridport Street, Melbourne 3205. Germany:Jurgen P. Esders, An der Apostelkirche 10, 10783 Berlin Eire:Derek Clarke, 36 Cherryfield Rd, Walkinstown. Dublin 12. France: Jean-Louis Lafon, 23 Rue de Mercantour, 78310 Maurepas Netherlands: Bart Beimers, NJ Haismasrt 7, 9061 BV Gierkerk Russia: Mikhail Vorobyov, 31-12 Krupskaya Str, Kostroma United States: Dr Ben Ramkissoon, 3011 White Oak Lane, Oak Brook, Il 60521 USA

Life Members: UK - Harvey Duncan, George Spiteri, Ian Ridpath, Margaret Morris, Michael Packham, Dr W.R. Withey, Paul Uppington, 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)

So later in the year in addition to new material on Copernicus which I have asked Polish Orbit reader Stan Wekka to write we will of course be celebrating the achievements of the great Italian with an article written by John Beenen some years ago being refreshed with some new philatelic illustrations. This year is also the 400th anniversary of the publication of "Astronomia Nova", in which Kepler published results of his ten-year long investigation of the motion of Mars. Look out for stamps and cancels for that as well. ASSS website at URL:

www.asss.utvinternet.com/ ANNUAL SUBSCRIPTION RATES Members in UK—£15 in Europe (EU and non-EU) - €30 Elsewhere - $45 equivalent Juniors (under 18) £6.50 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.

Copy Deadline for the June 2009 issue is May 14th by which time all material intended for publication should be with the Editor.

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FROM ATOM TO NUCLEAR POWERED SPACECRAFT PART 4: NUCLEAR ENERGY Part 1

The first nuclear reactor (pile)

(401, the first nuclear reactor in Chicago, CP-1) During WW II and directed by Enrico Fermi (1901-1954, Italy 2001) and Leo Szilard (1898-1964) the first controlled chain reaction by fission of uranium nuclei was carried out in the USA.

On December 2nd 1942 the event took place in an unused squash room in the cellars of the sports stadium of the University of Chicago. In fact, this first nuclear reactor CP-1 (Chicago Pile 1) was little more than a pile of blocks of 4000 tons of graphite, packed in 45.000 stones in which 19.00 holes were drilled for 40 tons of uranium oxide pallets. The graphite served as ‘moderator’, slowing down of the neutron radiation. By removing a plank from the pile of blocks, the ‘zip’, coated with a neutron absorbing cadmium the reactor was made critical. At that point exactly the right amount of neutrons was set free to keep the amount of nuclear fissions constant, thus regulating the chain reaction. At 3:25 sharp (Chicago time) the scientist George Weil (1908-1995) removed the cadmium-coated control rod and started the first controlled nuclear reaction. The reactor still was very primitive. The CP-1 possessed a kind of cooling but no protection. However, in three ways some security was provided : any emitted neutron -containing air could be sucked away by a surrounding balloon. A second cadmium rod was placed in such a position that by means of a rope and one blow of an axe it would fall into the reactor and a third team was in place with cadmium-containing water to pour it into the reactor in case of an emergency. But still because of the danger of the process getting out of hand the experiments had to be cut off after 28 minutes at a power of 200 Watt. Later, more secret, experiments, however, showed that in such a way it would be well possible to create the more easily fissionable plutonium-239 (239Pu) from the uranium.

by John Beenen

The programme fell under the direction of the physicist Samuel K.Allison (1 90 0- 19 65 ), a nd amongst others supporting were the brilliant mathematician Arthur Compton (1892-1962) (402, Arthur Compton, Guyana 2001) . Walter Zinn (1906-2000) - and Herbert Anderson (1914-1988) supervised the construction.

Natural nuclear reactor (403. Gabon) It is interesting that is in Oklo, Gabon a natural nuclear reactor exists. (See photo at http:// www.ans.org/pi/np/ oklo) and diagram below). This reactor, discovered in 1972, was formed about two milliard years ago when ground water came into contact with an uranium-rich material, by which the water acts as a neutron moderator. The water evaporates as the reaction proceeds, by which the rea ction is damped and the fear of melt-down decreases. The source is an interesting object for study to look after the effect over the time of radioactive side -products.

To the first commercial nuclear reactors In March 1943 the Chicago CP-1 was dismantled and transferred to a new location in Argonne Forest, about 40 km southwest of the city. After the making of a protection against radiation the reactor continued its life as CP-2. Next to it in Los Alamos, New Mexico, a separate investigation was carried out. (404. President Truman, USA, Y1514) On August 1st 1946 President Truman signed the ‘Atomic Energy Act’ (McMahon Act) by which the responsibility for the reactors came under control of the American government. In the same year the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) was founded. Already at that time nuclear waste was considered as an important problem. Walter Zinn became the 3

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manager of Argonne National Labs However, as well Argonne labs as Oak Ridge were located relatively close to inhabited areas the resistance against the presence of the reactors grew rapidly and in 1949 they were relocated to Arco, Idaho, where the National Reactor Testing Station was stationed. In May 1949 at that location the construction of the Argonne Experimental Breeding Reactor (ERB-1) was started, its construction was finished in April 1951. On December 20th 1951 this reaction supplied the first nuclear electrical energy about 45 kW, four lamps of 150 W beingconnected and lighted. This became the first reactor by which generally usable energy could be generated. Originally the reactor was called OP-4 or, more popular, ZIP (Zinn’s Infernal Pile). Actually the production of energy was not the main goal as the reactor first was meant for scientific experiments. In such a reactor uranium-235 ‘burns’ and uranium-238 is transformed into plutonium. The next reactor, the Materials Testing Reactor (MTR) became critical on March 31st 1952 and achieved full power of 30.000 kW some weeks later. Another reactor was built for use on submarines and came in use in 1953. This became the prototype for the first submarine driven by nuclear energy, the Nautilus on March 30th 1953. Many new reactors were under construction by now such as the Borax III, a small, relatively cheap reactor based upon light-water by which the uranium core was chilled in an open swimming-pool like tank. For the first time in the States from July 17th 1955 this reactor served a complete town with energy, Arco in Idaho. But the Americans were not the first, as the Soviets had already built their first commercial reactor at June 27 th 1954 in Obninsk, Kaluga Oblast. Other commercial reactors followed, for example in 1956 at Calder Hall in England and Shippingport, Pennsylvania (December 2nd 1957), a reactor with a power of 60 MW which was in service until 1982. In the sixties the number of reactors grew rapidly but as men became conscious of the fact that they also could be very dangerous the interest for the generation of this kind of energy decreased after that time. In 1957 the International Energy Agency (IAEA) was founded with its HQ in Vienna as part of the United Nations with the aim to promote the peaceful use of nuclear energy and to oppose the proliferation of nuclear weapons.

the future but that this po s si bi lit y a lr ea d y existed then and that this greatest of all destructive powers could be developed as an advantage to all mankind. However, the same speech showed the destructive capability of the United States and sent a message to the Soviet Union about American power. Because of a huge PR campaign around it, since than this speech became known as the ‘Atoms for Peace’ programme. (406. Plows for Guns) It resulted in the project ‘Plowshare’ using nuclear explosions for peaceful applications such as mining, large earth displacements, harbour and channel construction, garden building, tunnel construction etc. Ironically enough in 1958 this programme was offered to the 2 nd International Meeting for the Peaceful Application of Nuclear Energy in Geneva by Edward Teller, one of the inventors of the H-bomb. However, not everybody agreed with this programme as many feared that it would lead to nuclear proliferation as in the Acheson-Lilienthal Report of March 16th 1946 it was stated that the pursuit of atomic energy and the pursuit of the atomic bombs were in large part interchangeable and interdependent. Before this President Truman had already started thinking about peaceful applications of atomic energy. In a famous speech to Congress on October 3rd 1945 to he said: “The hope of civilization lies in international

arrangements looking, if possible, to the renunciation of the use and development of the atomic bomb, and directing and encouraging the use of atomic energy and all future scientific information toward peaceful and humanitarian ends”.

Atoms for Peace

This statement lead finally to the Atomic Energy Act of 1946 as mentioned above. The first PNE (Peaceful Nuclear Explosions) test ‘Gnome’ of 3,1 kiloton took place on December 10th 1961 in a salt bed southeast of Carslbad, New Mexico at a depth of 361 m.

(405. Atoms for Peace, USA 1955, Y597) In a speech on December 8th 1953 before the General Assembly of the United Nations President Eisenhower explained that the peaceful use of nuclear energy was not a dream for

The object of this test was to see if steam could be generated to produce electricity. Also the use of useful radioactive isotopes and their recovery was studied. 4

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The test was only very partially successful, as unintentionally, radioactive steam was vented while the press was watching. The project ‘Sedan’, the second of the Plowshare-tests with a strength of 104 kiloton displaced more than 12 million tons of soil and resulted in a radioactive cloud that rose to an altitude of nearly 4 km and a crater of 400 m in diameter and a depth of 100 m was formed. The radioactive dust plume headed northeast and then towards the Mississippi River. In spite of this result consideration was given to digging a second Panama Canal ‘Panatomic Channel’ in this way, but the plans were cancelled after too much opposition. Over the next year 26 more nuclear explosions were conducted. The last three experiments each with a power of 30 kilotons, ‘Rio Blanco’, were carried out on May 17th 1973 on the test location at Colorado. The tests were done at a depth of 2 km and had the purpose to investigate the collecting of gas. However, both location and gas became radioactive.

powerful as the largest based on chemicals. The NERVA -2 was not small with its length of 43,69 m, a diameter of 10,55 m and a full weight of 178.321 kg. However, after the Americans had reached the Moon and environmentalists protested against more launchings the attention for such propulsion systems decreased and on January 5th 1973 President Nixon cancelled all subventions for this project. (408. RTG model) During the development of the nuclear rocket, however, another apparatus was developed, the RTG (Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator) which would lead to great successes in space travel.

The Plowshare tests were officially stopped in 1977 when funds ended. The costs for the whole programme were estimated at $ 770 million.

Atoms in Space The use of engines based upon nuclear propulsion was raised for the first time in 1946 when the American Air Force started the ‘Nuclear Energy for the Propulsion of Aircraft’ project (NEPA). It became a reality when the Atomic Energy Committee joined the discussion within the framework of the Lexington project and it was assigned to the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Between 1949 and 1953 much investigation was done for a compact design of a reactor, protection against radiation and choice of materials. Besides application in air planes under the name NTR (Nuclear Thermal Rocket) also the use in rockets was investigated. Within the ROVER project – a general name for the investigation of nuclear propulsion – different reactor were constructed and tested.

The RTG used the heat developed by radioactive decay of specific isotopes and transferred it in electrical energy using the ‘Seebeck-effect’ named after Thomas Seebeck, (1770-1837), an Estonian physicist who discovered that in some metals an electrical current is developed when they are exposed to a difference in temperature. Today this effect also is used in thermocouples. Hence, RTG’s are no nuclear reactors.

(407. Nerva) In 1961 the ‘Nuclear Engines for Rocket Vehicle Application’ (NERVA) took over the work of Rover and started to construct a test based on this principle. The experiments were carried out in Nevada, Jackass Fields, about 160 km west of Las Vegas. The experiments bear names such as: KIWI, Phoebus, Peewee en Nuclear Furnace.

For an RTG different isotopes can be used which have to fulfil certain requirements. The decay time may not be too short, enough heat must be developed, compared to its mass the maximum amount of energy must be generated, the isotope itself and eventually also its decay products may not cause too much radiation by preference only the, less penetrating, alpha radiation.

In the first place the rockets were meant for longer flights to Mars, at that time planned for 1981, or further into the solar system. Finally, a rocket was built with a thermal energy of 4000 Megawatt, two times as

The Americans preferred plutonium 238 ( 238Pu) with a half life time 87,7 year. Some Russian types use strontium 90 (90Sr) for application on earth such as 5

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remote lighthouses and beacons for navigation. Unfortunately in such cases protection cannot carried out properly and in some cases the radioactive sources had been stolen. The first launched RTG went into space on June 29th 1961, the SNAP-3 (Systems Nuclear Auxiliary Power Program) in the Transit 4A satellite. Afterwards also some ships and weather stations were supplied with such kind of atomic propulsion. SNAP-10A was launched on April 3rd 1965 and became the first nuclear ionic engine in space. (409. Pioneer, USA 1975, WB 31) After that this kind of propulsion was often used especially in missions deep into our solar system and beyond such as: Pioneer 10 and 11, Voyager 1 and 2, Galileo, Ulysses, Cassini-Huygens and New Horizons. RTG’s also delivered the energy for the Viking bases on Mars and scientific experiments on the Moon for the Apollo’s 12 to 17 (SNAP 27). Also the Nimbus (weather), Transit (espionage) and LES (Lincoln Experimental Satellite, communication) satellites used RTG’s. There was considerable resistance against the use of RTG’s because in the event of a failure radioactivity could enter into the atmosphere. Principally RTG’s lose their power slowly by radioactive decay, but for instance after 25 year still 80% of the original power is available. The energy efficiency of the apparatus is very low and is below 10% (3-7%). Newer types with a better yield are under construction. Naturally the apparatus is designed in such a way that they can resist an untidy return and this has proved to be correct. Still the chance is not zero and after a failed launch of Transit 5BN3 on April 21st 1964 some radioactivity was recorded at the fall site (Madagascar). Moreover, it has to be remembered that 238Pu is more than 275 times more toxic than the better known 239Pu from nuclear reactors. Fortunately it nearly only releases alpha radiation which penetrates very little even through the skin. However if inhaled it can cause great damage. 238Pu is not suitable for nuclear bombs as its decay time is too quick and also develops too much heat for such an application. Also with Soviet satellites some accidents occurred with comparable reactors, such as on November 16th 1996 with Mars 96, where debris was spread over a large area in the neighbourhood of Chile.

Accidents with Nuclear Reactors (410. Chernobyl, Ukraine 1996; 411. 20 years after Chernobyl, Belarus 2006) On March 28th 1979 a major accident happened at a nuclear reactor at Harrisburg, on Three Miles Island, Pennsylvania. The disaster was caused by the loss of cooling liquid from the core by a mechanical defect followed by a human failure. Therefore the core was superheated which caused an almost totally uncontrolled reaction of the core a so-called ‘meltdown’. In the long run it transpired that nobody was hurt or exposed to nuclear radiation but this accident fed the concern by the general public about the safety of nuclear energy and led to much better safety measurements in nuclear power plants. Unfortunately other accidents in nuclear power plants are known to have had victims.

In the first place let us consider the accident which took place at Chernobyl, Ukraine, on April 26th 1986 (on the day I write this it is exactly 20 years ago). Because such type of reactors are only slightly protected large amounts of radiation were blown into the atmosphere (2-4.1018 Bq). A surface area of 200.000 km2 was contaminated for a prolonged time with especially 137cesium (and also 131I , 134Ce) and the fire men and inhabitants (of the city of Pripyat) were exposed to such an amount of radiation that the consequences still are felt today. Even levels of radiation of 16 Gy are found. Estimations of the final amount of victims are very variable: between 3 and 56 persons were killed immediately, 9,000 to 90,000 died or will die at the causes and 6.6 million of people have been exposed to such levels of radiation that they will possibly experience its consequences or have already experienced it. 336,000 have been temporarily evacuated. It is estimated that the amount of radiation which was released was amount 300 times higher than from the bomb on Hiroshima. About 60% came down on Belarussian territory, but the increase in radioactivity was even noticeable in the eastern part of North-America. About the cause of the accident two theories exist. The first put the guilt completely at the workers in the 6

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plant. The other mentions fractures or weak sports in the control rods also as a possible cause. In any case it is clear that the personnel did not know all weak spots of the reactor and that the management and the crew was not well trained for the job. Also some safety systems were switched off. The following cases are somewhat lesser known. One of the first nuclear accidents happened on December 12th 1952 and caused a partial melt-down of the Chalk River plant by Ottawa in Canada because of accidental removing of four control rods. Although millions of litres of radioactive water ran into the plant there were no known casualties. An accident occurred in England (October 7th 1957) when by a fire in a graphite controlled reactor at Windscale north Liverpool, later renamed Sellafield, an area of about 500 km2 was contaminated. In Greifswald in Eastern-Germany in 1976 also nearly a melt-down happened by the failure of a safety system in a fire. In Goi창nia, Brazil on September 18th 1987 244 persons were contaminated when a 137cesium source from an apparatus for cancer therapy was sold as scrap. Four persons were killed. And on September 30th 1999 an uncontrolled chain reaction took place in a Japanese reactor at Tokaimura by which large amounts of radioactive gas were emitted. 39 persons were directly exposed to a high level of radiation and some wounded men were counted.

(412. Model of an atom (helium), Korea 1962, Y266; 413. Reaction vessel, Germany 1964, Y311, 414. Model of an atom, Korea 1995) As a principle two types of reactors are known: Fission reactors and Fusion reactors. All 442 commercial reactors throughout the world are fission reactors, which can be subdivided according their operation characteristics: Thermal reactors Thermal reactors use a moderator (retardant) to slow down the generated neutrons in such a way that they are able to create a further fission Fast reactors Fast reactors need no moderation. All first reactors (a.o. EBR-1) were of this type, but also for safety reasons subsequent reactors were constructed of the first type. Still at least 20 fast reactors were built afterwards. Sub-critical reactors Sub-critical reactors use an external source for their neutrons instead of a chain reaction. This concept, however, is still in a theoretical state. Hence, thermal reactors are by far the most prevalent and can be subdivided further according their way of moderations: 1. Light water type (LWR, BWR, PWR, SSTAR)

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2. Graphite moderated (Magnox, AGR, HTGR, RBMK, PBMR) 3. Heavy water moderated (SGHWR, CANDU) The most usual are the PWR-type reactors. Such reactors are cooled and moderated by water under pressure. They are considered as the most safe and reliable reactors, although the Harrisburg reactor was of this type. BWR-type reactors generally are also very reliable, although the boiling water causes more corrosion of construction parts and the reactor needs more maintenance and protection. The reactor of the heavy water type such as the Canadian Candu-type are very efficient as the exhausted uranium can be changed during production. In general uranium needs to be replaced after some time, not because the material is exhausted, but because at the reaction substances are formed which poison the fuel rods, i.e. scavenge the generated neutrons to such an extent that the reaction stops. Canada has delivered such reactors to China, India, Pakistan, Rumania and South Korea. The RMBK reactors are of Russian design but, certainly after the Chernobyl disaster, are not considered sufficiently reliable anymore. They show some similarity to the Canadian Candu-reactors, are cooled with water and possess a graphite moderation. In Eastern Europe, however, some of such reactor are still in operation although the demands have been raised considerably. (415. Uranium occurrences, Canada 1980,744) Gas cooled reactors of the type GCR are found mainly in Great Britain. They also possess a moderation by graphite and are cooled with carbon dioxide. The older types called Magnox, have been decommissioned. Other types are less popular. Most thermal reactors use light enriched uranium and some work with a mixture of plutonium and uranium. The latter chemical normally is mined in dayshifts in some countries such as: United States, Australia, Kazakhstan, Canada, South-Africa, Namibia and Russia. The raw ore is milled and the uranium component, uranium oxide, is chemically separated. This powder is called ‘yellow cake’. To enrich it, it is transferred into uranium hexafluoride. Standard 238uranium contains less than 1% of the more easy fissionable 235uranium. To be useful in nuclear reactors it has to be enriched, that is, the contents of 235 uranium have to be raised until about 4%. That

takes place in gas diffusion factories with the help of gas centrifuges. For the use in weapons the enrichment has to be much higher to over 90%. The enriched material is pressed into small pallets which are put into rods, which are closed. These rods are the so-called ‘fuel rods’. As said, they serve for a couple of weeks until too many sideproducts have been formed. Than the rods have to be replaced. Used fuel rods mostly are stored under water. After a couple of decades they have become so ineffective that they can be stored under dry conditions in steel of concrete containers. Regeneration of the rods looks attractive but is economically not very profitable as the collection of polonium from the rods results in an amount of 17 times more high radio active waste.

Nuclear Fusion Reactors (416. Model Nuclear Fusion) As a matter of fact it would be much more advantageous to replace the nuclear fission reactors by nuclear fusion reactors. In nuclear fusion two light nuclei are brought together to form one, heavier, (helium) nucleus. In such a process a gigantic amount of energy is generated: 1 kg fusion fuel (a mix of deuterium and tritium) gives the same amount of energy of 10 million kgs of coal. In fact the process of feeding our Sun is a nuclear fusion process and the hydrogen (H) bomb is partly a kind of nuclear fusion. (417. Sir George Thomson, Guinea 2001) The first patent for a nuclear fusion reactor is from 1946 in name of Englishman Sir George Paget Thomson (1892-1975) and SouthAfrican born Moses Blackman (19081983). Nuclear fusion is much more safe than nuclear fission as the process does not cause a chain reaction and stops immediately when the right conditions are not exactly maintained. Moreover, the reaction product is a very small quantity of non-dangerous helium. Only applied tritium (atomic weight 3, half life time 12 years) could lead to dangerous consequences. The necessary tritium is produced at the spot from lithium, a raw material present on earth in sufficient quantities. This also counts for the necessary deuterium present in sea water in a quantity of 33 mg per litre. This amount mixed with an equal quantity of tritium can supply an amount of energy comparable to 360 litre of petrol. 8

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The wall of the reaction vessel is radiated with neutrons through which it becomes radioactive. However, the right choice of the wall material can keep this radioactivity as low as possible. In practice the radioactivity of such material will be so low after 50 to 100 years that recycling would be possible. In any case a fusion reactor does not produce long living radio active waste and as such is a very attractive alternative for fission reactors. The most well-known design of an experimental fusion reactor is the Tokomah Fusion Test Reactor (TFTR) in the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) which was used for experiments from 1982 to 1997.

(418. Igor Tamm, St.Vincent & Grenadines 2001, 419. Andrei Sakharov, Komi) The principle of the Tokomah reactor was outlined in 1950 by the Russians Igor Y.Tamm (1895-1971) and Andrei Sakharov (1921-1989) of the Kurchatov Institute in Moscow. A cloud of plasma consisting of deuterium and tritium is confined in a double toroid of a magnetic field by which the cloud of an extremely high temperature does not touch the wall of the reaction vessel. Principally two types of fusion reactors have been developed: the ‘Magnetic Confinement’ and the ‘Inertial Confinement’ reactors. Both principles take care that the plasma cloud of an extreme high temperature (150 million degrees Kelvin) does not touch the wall of the vessel as no material on earth will resist such high temperatures. The magnetic confinement reactor therefore captures the cloud in an magnetic field. The inertial confinement reactor is designed in such a way that the energy density necessary for the reaction (100.000 per nanosecond) is pressed into a small quantity of plasma at such a speed (10-11 to 10-9 second) that the plasma has no time to move. (420. Shiva, India) Such type of reactors use multiple lasers known as ‘Shiva’ (the Indian God with several arms, read lasers) and ‘Nova’ and are mounted in the Lawrence Livermore Laboratories in Livermore California, part of the American Department of Energy (DOE), the University of California and the National Laboratory in Los Alamos.

(421. Coulomb, France 1961, M1351) The fusion of the deuterium-tritium mixture requires an e x tr e m e h i g h t e m p e r a t u r e . Theoretically this high temperature can be explained by Coulomb’s Law: “ The

magnitude of the electrostatic force between two point charges is directly proportional to the magnitudes of each charge and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between the charges”. According to this law the particles first have to pass an electrical repulsion before nuclear forces are able to fuse the particles. This requires the said extremely high temperatures, if the temperature is the only determining factor in the process. For a 1:1 mix of the said gases this threshold is about 45 million degrees Kelvin.

In 1993 the experimental TFTR reactor had already delivered a reasonable amount of energy enough for 3000 homes. After that the project was transferred to ITER begun in 1989 by Presidents Regan and Gorbachov and aims for a process for a long term energy generation. In such a way that it must be able to generate an amount of energy of at least 500 MW for 10 minutes, ten times more than necessary for the generation of the heat fusion plasma. Next to the International Space Station (ISS) at this moment ITER is considered as the largest scientific programme The project is a collboration of several countries: USA, Russian Federation, EU, Japan, China, South-Korea, India, Brazil, and Switzerland. The costs of construction are 4,7 billon Euro over ten years. As a location for the reactor in 2005 the South-French Cadarache in Saint-Paul-lès-Durance, somewhat north of Aix-en Provence, was chosen. It is expected that after ITER a prototype of an electricity power plant can be build named: DEMO with a power of 1000 MW. Experimental fusion reactors such as JET (Joint European Torus) (torus is a magnetic ring in thee shape of a doughnut) at Oxford in Great Britain, the largest fusion experiment in the world and TEXTOR in Jülich, Germany, are part of the ITER project. Textor is a cooperation of three partners: Germany, Belgium and The Netherlands. 422. CERN, Spain 2004; 423. CERN, Switzerland; 424. CERN, Switzerland 2004) More fundamental research on the behaviour of matter 9

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By the way, even in those countries who abstain from their own nuclear energy generation often of such kind of energy is imported. In The Netherlands, where the use of own nuclear energy is very limited, 8% of its energy consumption is imported nuclear energy, mostly from France.

is carried out in the wellrespected institute CERN (Centre Européen pour la Recherche Nucleaire) founded in 1954 and settled in the neighbourhood of Geneva. This institute also is responsible for the protocols (http://) and the language (html) for the World Wide Web (www). It is clear that nuclear fusion gives the answer to all energy problems in future. But, because of large technical problems with the handling of the hot plasma cloud and the material choice of the reaction vessel the experiments still have not delivered an efficient process. It may be expected that in future all technical issues will be resolved one after another but unfortunately nuclear fusion is not a short term solution for our present energy problems. The quickest scenario works with a minimum expectation of 40 years before the first commercial nuclear fusion reactor will be operational. Next to hot nuclear fusion from time to time publications appear about ‘cold fusion’. That would be a very advantageous step as handling of the very hot plasma cloud could be abandoned. Unfortunately until today is has not been proved with enough scientific evidence that fusion of nuclei at room temperature is possible although the original discoverers in 1989 Martin Fleischman (1927, University of Southampton) and Stanley Pons (1943, University of Utah) still are convinced that this is possible. Thus, it could be possible that Coulomb’s Law could be circumnavigated in one way or another. It would be a scientific breakthrough, however, laboratories working on hot nuclear fusion shall not be happy with such a development.

Advantages and nuclear power

disadvantages

Still it cannot be denied that the generation of nuclear energy causes some serious environmental problems such as: Risks for major accidents, radio-activity! What do we do with nuclear waste? With side-products such as plutonium bombs can be made (proliferation) Very high construction costs for a power plant Very high maintenance costs Safety problems, radiation is dangerous! High costs for dismantling On the other side significant advantages can be noted in comparison with conventional power plants: No, or very little emission of greenhouse gases (CO 2) No air pollution with other gases such as: carbon monoxide (CO), sulphur oxides (SO2), nitrogen oxides (NOx), dust particles etc. Little solid waste Low fuel costs Large fuel reserves It is difficult to draw a definite conclusion as for every element one can find supporters or opponents. It is a fact that supporters often present nuclear energy as a form of cheap, clean energy, denying the problems of the storage of nuclear waste, which is to me one of the largest problems of the use of nuclear energy, thus a problem not to be neglected. It is obvious that opponents use exactly this point to attack this form of energy as this kind of waste will be present on earth for a very long time and storage, even locating deep into the earth is not completely without danger because of instability of rock strata. Hence, the discussion will last and will go on until all fission processes are replaced by fusion, but that will not be for a hundred years !!!

(4 2 5 .

Rutherford, Canada 1971, Y455) All around the world nuclear power is used today as a form of e ne r g y gen era ti o n. Some countries, however, consider the dangers that great that they abstain from this form of energy generation. With so many recent oil related political problems the call for nuclear energy is increasing even in those countries.

In the next part of his feature John Beenen discusses Nuclear reactors in The Space Age 10

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Christopher Wren—Astronomer Our Chair Margaret Morris details aspects of the life of Christopher Wren (recently honoured with a beautiful British issue) which perhaps are less well known. Most people know of Wren as an architect, especially famous for his work in redesigning the City of London after the Great Fire of 1666. However, it is a fact that his earlier years were spent in the pursuit of astronomy and this allows us to include him in a philatelic Astronomy collection. Born in 1632 in East Knoyle, Wiltshire, he was the son of a well-connected clergyman who later became Dean of Windsor. Wren entered Wadham College, Oxford, in 1646, took his first degree in 1650 and in 1653 became a Fellow of All Souls. While at Oxford, he distinguished himself in geometry and applied mathematics. He seems to have been gifted in other ways and has been credited with a number of inventions as well as m e c h a n i c a l improvements to, for example, magnets and pendulums. He also constructed a universal sundial and made maps of the Moon, Mars and Saturn. He was interested in building techniques – which would prove most useful to him in his later career. In 1657 Wren became Professor of Astronomy at Gresham College and in 1660 was elected Savilian Professor of Astronomy at Oxford. In the 1713 edition of “Principia”, Newton spoke highly of him as a geometrician so you can see that he was recognised by his contemporaries to be a gifted person. He was a man of his time and his life was shaped by the Civil War, the outbreak of Plague and of course the Great Fire of London. Following the restoration of the monarchy, Wren had been appointed by Charles II as Assistant Surveyor-General of the Royal Works. In this capacity he designed buildings for the universities of Cambridge and Oxford. In 1665 he went to France to study architecture and was inspired by the domes he found there. On his return he produced plans for the repair of old St. Paul’s Cathedral which was then in a

state of decay. However these plans were overtaken by the Great Fire of London which presented Wren with his opportunity to shine as an architect. Although it destroyed the lives and livelihoods of so many unfortunates, the Fire marked a special moment in the history of London. On 13 May 2008 Royal Mail issued a beautiful set featuring Cathedrals. Six individual stamps illustrated cathedrals in different parts of the United Kingdom but an associated miniature sheet (above) was devoted to four views of St. Paul’s Cathedral to commemorate the tercentenary of its completion. Together this block of four provides us with a superb interior view of Wren’s masterpiece. An image of the great man himself, from the Closterman portrait held by the Royal Society, appears at the left hand side of the sheet. It is nice to see this particular portrait instead of the more familiar one by Kneller which is in the National Portrait Gallery. I think the arrangement of the hands in the Closterman portrait is particularly pleasing and of course it includes an image of St. Paul’s. Associated special cancellations for this issue include one depicting Wren himself, one featuring dividers and a number with the great dome of St. Paul’s. Royal Mail, as usual, issued other moneymaking “goodies” such as a Medal Cover and the “Press Sheet” which contains 16 Miniature Sheets. 11

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Special cancels for the British Cathedrals issue and right linking Copernicus and Wren, and the Christopher Wren School. Far right cancel illustrating the Old Royal Observatory

If you are inspired to form a modest Wren display, you will find that, looking a little further back, there are earlier related cancellations. Also, you might like to include stamps depicting a few of the buildings which Wren designed – notably, of course, the old Royal Observatory at Greenwich which brought together his skills as astronomer and architect. The Great Fire of London is commemorated on a stamp of St. Helena and other stamps depict various of Wren’s churches. He also designed the monument which stands at the spot where the Fire started. It is interesting that the great cathedral was to survive a later fire of London in the shape of the Blitz and a number of stamps commemorate this. St. Paul’s of course appears on many of the issues for the wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer. Kensington Palace can Special cancel showing dome of also be included, as well as Hampton Court for St Paul’s against wartime sky which Wren designed an extension. You might also consider including stamps depicting some of his famous contemporaries and his

patron, Charles II, founder of the Royal Society. As with any other aspect of thematic philately, it depends on how widely you wish to cast your net. Several astronomers have appeared on banknotes and Wren is no exception. However, the outlay is rather higher than for the modest £1 Bank of England note issued in honour of Newton. Wren appears on a £50 Bank of England note! This handsome item features on the back the Closterman portrait, the ground plan of St. Paul’s and a London view with the great cathedral towering up into a sky in which the constellations Cepheus and Andromeda are delineated and named. If you are interested in peripherals, there are various medals and medallions honouring Wren. As already mentioned, Royal Mail and Royal Mint produced a medallic first day cover for the special issue of 13 May 2008. I have a postcard from the Alder Planetarium and Astronomical Museum which illustrates “Two interesting pieces of the seventy in the Tomlinson

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Collection acquired in 1936. The quadrant here illustrated was made by Christopher Wren, famous English architect, in the late 17th century”. He gets everywhere! You could include other postcards of his portrait or buildings. A more recent commemoration took the form of a Cinderella stamp produced for the opening of East Knoyle Post Office on 5 August 2006. Strictly speaking, it should mark the re-opening as this post office had closed in 2004. Due to the special efforts of the local people, a completely new community shop and post office came into being and a fund-raising cover was produced. An article about the background to this issue (“A Cinderella Rides Out” by Bernard Pearson) appeared in Gibbons Stamp Monthly for October 2006. Wren was reputed to be a rather small and quiet man. However his achievements speak for themselves. He was knighted in 1673 and elected President of the Royal Society in 1681. Following a long and active life, in 1723 Wren became ill following a journey to London and died at his home in St. James’s Street at the great age (for those days) of 91. He was buried in the crypt of his masterpiece – St. Paul’s Cathedral. Old Postcard showing two items from Adler Planetarium museum — the upper item is Wren’s quadrant.

The stunning display of the British Cathedral silver-coloured stamps within the 2008 Royal Mail presentation pack which also included the quartet of colourful stamps for Wren’s St Paul’s, illustrated on page 11 : surely some of the most beautiful GB stamps ever !?

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Statue for Spacedog Laika Report by Bert van Eijck

Without much ceremonial show officials of the Air and Space Medical Institute in Moscow, Russia, unveiled a bronze statue for a dog in front of their building. However this was not just ‘a dog’, but the most famous one on Earth, even if it died over fifty years ago. This was the spacedog Laika, picked up from the street, trained in the Institute, launched into space by rocket and who died there as the first living creature from our planet. Laika was a Siberian Pomeranian and was chosen for a glorious moment of the Sovjet regime. For it was state leader Nikita Krushchev himself who summoned Sergej Pavlovitsj Korolev, chief rocket designer and father of the first Earth satellite Sputnik, to his office in the Kremlin. Korolev was ordered to create a spectacular space event for the 40th anniversary of the Russian Revolution in November 1957. This secret meeting at the Kremlin took place only three days after the successful launch of Sputnik-1 on October 4, 1957. Now we know the Sovjet leaders got their triumph, for within a month, on November 3, 1957 Sputnik-2 climbed into space with on board doggy Laika. The female animal had metal ties on her body to help her maintain balance and to protect the measuring apparatus. These ties we can see on the statue of Laika (see picture).

oxygen. It was said at that time Laika had survived for ten days in space, but now we know better : she died just six hours after launching because of overheating as the cooler inside the cabin broke down and Laika suffocated. Sputnik-2 made 2370 orbits around Earth before burning in the atmosphere on April 14, 1958. The ‘first living creature in space’ even it was a dog, was of course a sensation at that time. It was after Sputnik-1 another scoop of the Russians. A lot of countries issued stamps for Sputnik-2 with Laika; most of these countries were affiliated with the Soviet Union, like those in Eastern Europe. Laika was honoured on about thirty stamps and ten stamp sheets/ blocks, not to mention of the many special postal cancellations, postal stationary and first day covers. This indeed is a collection on itself. (Poland 1964

shown)

In the late fifties Laika was proclaimed as a pioneer for coming manned space flights. Now we believe this was not the case : it was for sure a political stunt. Pioneers for Sovjet cosmonauts and later American astronauts are the Russian dogs Bjelka (=squirrel) and Strjelka (little arrow), and the chimps Ham and Enos. These Yuri Gagarin and John Glenn.

The Soviet scientists understood from the outset that the dog was to die inside Sputnik-2 through a lack of

Laika before launch on Sputnik 2— 3.11.57 Bjelka and Strjelka after their journey in Sputnik 5

Since then about 500 men and woman from Earth have gone into space. And there are more to come, first in the International Space Station, perhaps later in a base on our moon, and in the far future on a colony at our neighbouring planet Mars. But, I very much doubt if we will witness that event in our life times. 14

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From Bert van Eijck Look at the pictures with this article. What do you see? At first glance one sees a nonused USA Aerogramme, issued in 1978, with 22c postage imprinted and the text NASA Space Shuttle, all printed in blue. Just below this you will notice “ESA +logo+Spacelab”, all printed in red colour. Sorry, you say? You have not seen this before? You might like this in your collection, either in your exhibition ‘USA in Space’ or ‘Europe in Space’? For this seems to be a gem? Forget it, it’s just a fraud, a fraud in philately. This is one of the tricks a German dealer in philately used in the ‘80’s to sell more astro material to his customers. Many of them believed these aerogrammes with extra text were official, issued by the United States Postal Services (USPS) and therefore a very nice collector’s item. At that time I believed it too. I do not know how much I paid for that item, but be sure it was a lot more than for the plain aerogramme. After suspicious rose, I asked a philatelic pen friend in USA to send to my home address in the Netherlands – the old one at Planetenlaan 228 in Groningen – the NASA/ESA aerogramme. Just to see what happened. Nothing happened! That is, the aerogramme, not a perfect example of nice cancelling as you can see, came along the normal postal way to my home address. USPS only “saw” the 22c imprinted USA, and disregard the red ESA marks. Because this had nothing to do with the instruction to send the aerogramme to the sender. So, it was not forbidden to print something else on the aerogramme. And therefore this was not punishable. And to make sure: do not take this NASA/ESA aerogramme into your exhibit, unless you mention it as a fraud. Otherwise the jury will punish you for having fraudulent material in your collection!

May I recommend ? I received the large coffee-table style book from my wife as a surprise Christmas present and what a delight it is ! writes

your Editor.

Translated from the original French this handsome 2006 book* by Laurent Lemerle devotes two colourful pages to a myriad of thematic subjects starting with A History of Mankind (with 25 sub divisions) through Discoveries, Inventions and Manufacturing (13 divisions including The Conquest of Space) to Nature (12 divisions). In all Lemerle illustrates over 3,500 stamps in full colour introducing each chapter with a brief prologue explaining its context. For those of you who wonder what other thematicists do, this book is a must and an inspiration to those who might take up the hobby. Buy it ! *ISBN 0-8109-5519-9 (Cf Amazon website : around £18) 15

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Un-manned Satellites on Postage Stamps : 29 By Guest Contributors Don Hillger and Garry Toth This is the twenty-ninth in a series of articles about un-manned satellites on postage stamps. This article features the French FR-1 satellite. FR -1 was successfully launched on 6 December 1965. FR-1 was developed by CNES (Centre National dâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Etudes Spatiales) but was launched at Vandenberg AFB in California into a near-circular orbit at 750 km. The spacecraft carried two experiments. One was involved with VLF (very low frequency) signals, and the other was to measure the electron density concentration in the magnetosphere and ionosphere. The FR-1 spacecraft consisted of two truncated octagonal pyramids, joined at their bases to an octagonal body about 68 cm across and covered with solar cells. A magnetic field antenna extended from the top of the spacecraft on top of a supporting tube, and an electron density probe extended downward from the base. Four relatively-short telemetry antennas extended diagonally upward from near the top of the spacecraft body. Four 2 m long electric field antenna booms extended radially outward from the body. Nearly all the postage stamps showing FR-1 do a nice job of depicting the spacecraft and its features. Apparently the design was wellpublicized, since the various stamp designers drew very similar images of FR-1. As with the A-1 satellite featured in the previous installment in this series of articles, the stamps showing FR-1 were issued primarily by France and its former colonies. Most of the stamps were issued in 1966 and 1967, with a few more from 1971 through 1973. The last items known to show FR-1 are a stamp and a miniature sheet (Scott 587 and 588a) issued by Burundi in 1981. A checklist of postal items showing FR-1-series satellites (http://www.cira.colostate.edu/ramm/ hillger/FR-1.htm) is available on the Website developed by the authors for the un-manned satellites featured in this series of articles (http:// www.cira.colostate.edu/ramm/hillger/satellites.htm). E-mail correspondence is welcome. Don Hillger can be reached at hillger@cira.colostate.edu and Garry Toth at garry_toth@hotmail.com.

A version of this article first appeared in The Astrophile for ? 16

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Shuttle Story : 2001

STS -98, -102, -100, -104, -105, - 108

The ISSâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Destiny STS-98 was flown to the International Space Station by Atlantis to deliver to the station the Destiny Laboratory Module. Allmission objectives were completed and the shuttle re-entered and landed safely at East Edwards Airport on February 20, after twelve days in space, six of which were spent docked to the ISS. STS-98 occurred while the first station crew was aboard the new space station. The Destiny module was to be the primary operating facility for U.S. research payloads aboard the ISS. It was berthed to the Unity module and activated over a period of five days became NASA's first permanent operating orbital research station since Skylab was vacated in February 1974. The Boeing Company began construction of the 16 ton (14.5 imp.t), state-of-the art research laboratory in 1995 at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. Destiny was shipped to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida in 1998, and was turned over to NASA for prelaunch preparations in August 2000.

Flight

STS-98

Commander Pilot

Kenneth Cockrell Mark Polansky

MS MS MS

Robert Curbeam Marsha Ivins Thomas Jones

KSC Launch Date EFB Landing Purpose / Main Payload

7.2.01 20.2.01

Dock with ISS Destiny Lab

Astronauts work inside the pressurized facility to conduct research in numerous scientific fields. Scientists throughout the world would use the results to enhance their studies in medicine, engineering, biotechnology, physics, materials science, and Earth science. The aluminum U.S. laboratory module is 28 feet (8.5 m) long and 14 feet (4.3 m) wide. It comprises three cylindrical sections and two endcones that contain the hatch openings through which astronauts enter and exit the module. The aft port of Destiny is connected to the forward port of the Unity node, and the forward port of Destiny is connected to the aft port of the Harmony module. A 20-inch (510 mm)-diameter window is Destiny, shown above being installed, has a 20inch (510 mm) optically pure, telescope-quality located on one side of the centre module segment. glass window located in an open rack bay used primarily for Earth science observations. Station Each of the two berthing ports on Destiny contains a hatch with a crewmembers use very high quality video and still window. Both hatches are normally open, and remain open unless a cameras at the window to record Earth's changing situation arises requiring a module to be isolated. The hatches can be landscapes. A window shutter protects the window opened or closed from either side. The hatches have a pressure interlock from potential micrometeoroid and orbital debris feature, which prevents the hatch from being opened if there is a strikes during the life of the ISS. The crew negative pressure across the hatch. manually opens the shutter to use the window.

Imagery

captured from window has given geologists and meteorologists the chance to study floods, avalanches, fires and ocean events such as plankton blooms in a way never seen before, as well as given international scientists the opportunity to study features such as glaciers, coral reefs, urban growth and wild fires.

Destiny's

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In the mission patch design the names of the rotating crew are shown in the bottom section with the swirling ribbons around the craft indicating the crew rotation. The 1 and 2 in the number 102 also signify the numbers of the first ISS expedition crews. Shown mated below the station is the Italian-built Multi-Purpose Logistics Module Leonardo which was to be attached by the crew during the mission. Note the Italian flag above right of the name â&#x20AC;&#x153;Vossâ&#x20AC;?.

STS-102 was a mission to the ISS flown byDiscovery and launched from Kennedy Space Center, its primary objectives being re-supplying the Station and rotating the Expedition 1 and Expedition 2 crews. STS-102 was the eighth shuttle mission to visit the International Space Station and served as a crew rotation flight. Discovery delivered the Expedition Two crew to the station and returned the Expedition One crew to Earth. The primary cargo for the mission was the Leonardo Multi-Purpose Logistics Module (MPLM), with six racks for the U.S.Destiny Laboratory Module which had been delivered and installed onto the station during STS-98. The STS102 crew temporarily connected Leonardo to the International Space Station in order to unload its contents. There were also two EVAs ("spacewalks") conducted to complete assembly operations. Mission Objectives for the first spacewalk was for astronauts Susan Helms and Jim Voss to move the shuttle docking port to make room for the MPLM and attach the Lab Cradle Assembly to the top of the lab. The assembly was to be used on STS-100 when the Canadarm2 Space Station Remote Manipulator System (SSRMS) was attached to the station. On the second spacewalk, astronauts Andy Thomas and Paul Richards attached an External Stowage Platform and a coolant pump to the outside of the Destiny module.

Flight

STS-102

Commander Pilot

James Wetherbee James Kelly

MS MS MS MS MS MS MS MS

Andrew Thomas Paul Richards James Voss up Susan Helms up Yuri Usachev up Bill Shepherd down Yuri Gidzenko down Sergei Krikalev down

KSC Launch Date KSC Landing Purpose / Main Payload

8.3.01 21.3.01

ISS Crew Rotation MPLM

A Multi-Purpose Logistics Module (MPLM) is a large pressurized container used on Space Shuttle missions to transfer cargo to and from the ISS. It is carried in the cargo bay of the Space Shuttle and berthed to the Unity or Harmony module, where supplies are offloaded and finished experiments and waste are loaded. The MPLM is then reberthed in the Shuttle for return to Earth. The modules are provided to NASA under contract by the Italian Space Agency (ASI). Three MPLMs were built and delivered to NASA and have names chosen by the ASI to denote some of the great talents in Italian history: Leonardo, Raffaello, and Donatello. While built by ASI, the modules are owned by NASA. In exchange for building the MPLMs, ASI receives access to U.S. research time on the ISS. The MPLM was originally designed for Space Station Freedom. Initially, it was to be built by Boeing, but in 1992, the Italians announced that they would build a "Mini-Pressurized Logistics Module," able to carry 4500 kg of cargo. After the 1993 redesign, the length was doubled and it was

The Multi-Purpose Logistics Module in the cargo bay of Discovery on March 10, 2001 renamed the "Multi-Purpose Logistics Module." Each empty MPLM is approximately 21 feet (6.4 m) long, 15 feet (4.6 m) in diameter, weighs 4.5 tons, and can deliver up to 10 tons of cargo to the ISS.

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STS-100 was a mission to the ISS flown by Endeavour to install the ISS Canadarm2 robotic arm.

Flight

STS-100

The highest priority objectives of the flight were the installation, activation and checkout of the Canadarm2 robotic arm on the station. The operation of the arm is critical to the capability to continue assembly of the ISS and was also necessary to attach a new airlock to the station on the subsequent shuttle flight, mission STS104. A final component of the Canadarm is the Mobile Base System (MBS), installed onboard the station during the June 2002 STS-111 flight.

Commander Pilot

Kent Rominger Jeffrey Ashby

MS MS MS MS MS

Chris Hadfield John Phillips Scott Parazynski Umberto Guidoni Yuri Lonchakov

Other major objectives for Endeavourâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s mission were to berth the Raffaello logistics module to the station, activate it, transfer cargo between Raffaello and the station, and reberth Raffaello in the shuttle's payload bay. Raffaello is the second of three Italian Space Agency-developed Multi-Purpose Logistics Module that were launched to the station. The Leonardo module was launched and returned on the previous shuttle flight, STS-102, in March.

KSC Launch Date EAFB Landing Purpose / Main Payload

19.4.01 1.5.01

Servicing ISS Canadarm2

Remaining objectives included the transfer of other equipment to the station such as an Ultra-High Frequency communications antenna and a spare electronics component to be attached to the exterior during space walks. Finally, the transfer of supplies and water for use aboard the station, the transfer of experiments and experiment racks to the complex, and the transfer of items for return to Earth from the station to the shuttle were among the objectives.

Endeavour also to boosted the station's altitude and perform a

flyaround survey of the complex, including recording views of the station with an IMAX cargo bay camera. All objectives were completed without incident, and re-entry and landing happened uneventfully on May 1.

Astronaut Stephen K. Robinson anchored to the end of Canadarm2 during STS-114 (July 2005) maintenance: moving equipment and supplies

During this mission, astronaut Chris around the station, supporting astronauts Hadfield (left) made the first spacewalk by working in space, and servicing instruments and a Canadian. other payloads attached to the space station.

Astronauts receive specialized training to enable The Mobile Servicing System (MSS), better them to perform these functions with the various known by its primary component systems. Canadarm2, is a robotic system and associated equipment on the ISS which plays a key role in station assembly and The MSS is composed of the actual arm called Space Station Remote Manipulator (SSRMS), the Mobile Remote Servicer Base System (MBS) and the Special Purpose Dexterous Manipulator (SPDM also known as Dextre or Canada hand). The system can move along rails on the Integrated Truss Structure on top o f t h e U S pr o v i de d M o bi l e Transporter cart which hosts the MRS Base System. The MSS was designed and manufactured by MDA Space Missions (previously called MD Robotics; previously called SPAR Aerospace) for the Canadian Space Agency's contribution to the International Space Station.

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Mission 7A, as noted on the orbit tail in the mission patch design was to install the Joint Airlock, which can be seen stored inside the payload bay along with four high pressure gas tanks. The Astronaut symbol and US flag dominate the design.

STS-104 was a mission to the ISS flown by Atlantis. Its primary objectives were to install the Quest Joint Airlock and help perform maintenance on the Station. It was successful and returned to Earth without incident, after a successful docking, equipment installation and three spacewalks.

Flight

STS-104

Commander Pilot

Steven Lindsey Charles Hobaugh

The primary purpose of the flight was to deliver and install the Quest airlock. The Joint Airlock is a pressurized flight element consisting of two cylindrical chambers attached end-to-end by a connecting bulkhead and hatch. Once installed and activated, the ISS airlock became the primary path for International Space Station space walk entry and departure for U.S. spacesuits, which are known as Extravehicular Mobility Units, or EMUs. In addition, the Joint Airlock is designed to support the Russian Orlan spacesuit for EVA activity.

MS MS MS

Janet Kavandi Michael Gernhardt James Reilly

KSC Launch Date 12.7.01 KSC Landing 24.7.01 Purpose / Main Payload

ISS Servicing Quest Airlock

The Joint Airlock is 20 ft (6.1 m) long, 13 ft (4.0 m) in diameter and weighs 6.5 short tons (5.9 metric tons). It was built at the Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) by the Space Station Prime Contractor Boeing. The ISS-airlock has two main components: a crew airlock and an equipment airlock for storing EVA gear and EVA preflight preps. STS-104 also carries a spacelab pallet with four High Pressure Gas Assembly containers that were attached to the exterior of the airlock. Mission Specialists Michael Gernhardt and James Reilly conducted three space walks while Space Shuttle Atlantis was docked to the International Space Station. They spent a total of 16 hours and 30 minutes outside. During the first space walk, Gernhardt and Reilly assisted in the installation of the airlock, attaching it to the starboard CBM of Unity. During the second and third excursions, they focused on the external outfitting of the Quest airlock with The Quest airlock consists of two segments, the four High Pressure Gas Tanks, handrails and other vital equipment. "Equipment lock" that stores spacesuits and The third spacewalk was conducted from Quest itself. equipment, and the "Crew Lock" from which The Quest Joint Airlock (above right), previously known as the Joint Airlock Module, is the primary airlock for the ISS. Quest was designed to host spacewalks with both EMU and Orlan spacesuits. Before Quest was attached, Russian spacewalks using Orlan suits could only be done from the Zvezda service module and American spacewalks using EMUs were only possible when a Space Shuttle was docked. The arrival of Pirs on September 16, 2001 was to provide another airlock from which Orlan spacewalks can be conducted.

astronauts can exit into space. It was derived from the Space Shuttle airlock, although it was significantly modified to waste less atmospheric gas when used. It has mountings for four highpressure gas tanks, two containing oxygen and two containing nitrogen, which provides for atmospheric replenishment to the American side of the space station, most specifically for the gas lost after a hatch opening during a space walk.

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As with STS-102, the STS-105 mission patch symbolises the exchange of the Expedition 2 and 3 crews with three gold stars above the Astronaut Office symbol and two below it relating to the “up” and “down” teams. The exchanging crew names appear in the bottom section of the patch.

STS-105 was a mission by Discovery to the ISS launched from Kennedy Space Center, Florida, August 10, 2001. This mission would prove to be Discovery's final mission until STS-114, due to the fact that it was grounded for a refit, and then all Shuttles were grounded in the wake of the Columbia disaster.

Flight

STS-105

Commander Pilot

Scott Horowitz Frederick Sturckow

The main purpose of STS-105 was the rotation of the ISS crew and the delivery of supplies utilizing the Italian-built Leonardo on its second flight The crew also performed two spacewalks and conducted scientific experiments. The MLPM contained additional scientific racks, equipment and supplies.

MS MS MS MS MS MS MS MS

Daniel Barry Patrick Forrester Frank Culbertson up Mikhail Turin up Vladimir Dezhurov up Yuri Usachev down James Voss down Susan Helms down

Aboard Leonardo were six Resupply Stowage Racks, four Resupply Stowage Platforms, and two new scientific experiment racks for the station's U.S. laboratory Destiny. The two new science racks (EXPRESS Racks 4 and 5) added further science capability to the station. EXPRESS stands for Expedite the Processing of Experiments to the Space Station. EXPRESS Rack 4 weighs 1,175 pounds (533 kg) and EXPRESS Rack 5 weighs 1,200 pounds (544 kg). The Resupply Stowage Racks and Resupply Stowage Platforms were filled with Cargo Transfer Bags that contain equipment and supplies for the station. The six Resuppply Stowage Racks contained almost 3,200 pounds (1451 kg) of cargo and the four Resupply Stowage Platforms contained about 1,200 pounds (544 kg) of cargo, not including the weight of the Cargo Transfer Bags, the foam packing around the cargo or the straps and fences that held the bags in place. Another payload onboard is the Materials International Space Station Experiments (MISSE). This project was a NASA/Langley Research Centermanaged cooperative endeavour to fly materials and other types of space exposure experiments on the space station. The objective was to develop early, low-cost, non-intrusive opportunities to conduct critical space exposure tests of space materials and components planned for use on future spacecraft. Johnson Space Center, Marshall Space Flight Center, Glenn Research Center, the Materials Laboratory at the Air Force Research Laboratory and Boeing Phantom Works were participants with Langley in the project. The MISSE experiments were the first externally mounted experiments conducted on the ISS. The experiments were in four Passive Experiment Containers (PECs) that were initially developed and used for an experiment on Mir in 1996 during the Shuttle-Mir Program. The PECs were transported to Mir on STS-76. After an 18-month exposure in space, they were retrieved on STS-86. PECs are suitcase-like containers for transporting experiments via the space shuttle to and from an orbiting spacecraft. Once on orbit and clamped to the host spacecraft, the PECs

KSC Launch Date KSC Landing Purpose / Main Payload

19.5.00 29.5.00

ISS Servicing & Crew Rotation

are opened and serve as racks to expose experiments to the space environment. Other payloads onboard were part of the Goddard Space Flight Center's Wallops Flight Facility Shuttle Small Payloads Project. The SSPP system utilizes payload carrier systems such as the Hitchhiker, Getaway Specials and Space Experiment Modules to provide a low cost scientific research environment. SSPP payloads on STS-105 include the Hitchhiker payload Simplesat, The Cell Growth in Microgravity GAS Canister (G-708), the Microgravity Smoldering Combustion experimet (MSC), and the Hitchiker Experiment Advancing Technology Space Experiment Module-10 payload).

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â&#x20AC;&#x153;UF-1â&#x20AC;? indicates that this was the first designated Utilisation Flight. Once again the design of the mission patch symbolises the crew exchange with the three stars on the right and the three on the left relating to the arriving and departing ISS Russian/American crews.

STS-108 was a mission to the ISS flown by Endeavour to deliver supplies to and help maintain the Station. This was the first mission after the 9/11 attacks. STS-108 was the 12th shuttle flight to visit the Statio n and the first since the installation of the Russian airlock called Pirs on the station. Endeavour delivered the Expedition Four crew to the orbital outpost. The Expedition Three crew returned to Earth on Endeavour. While at the station, the crew conducted one spacewalk and attached the Raffaello Multi-Purpose Logistics Module to the station so that about 2.7 metric tons (3 tons) of equipment and supplies could be unloaded. The crew later returned Raffaello to Endeavour's payload bay for the trip home. The hatches were opened between Endeavour and the ISS Destiny Laboratory at 5:42 p.m. EST Dec. 7, enabling the ten crew members to greet one another. The Expedition 3 crew officially ended their 117-day residency on board the International Space Station Dec. 8 as their custom Soyuz seatliners were transferred to Endeavour for the return trip home. The transfer of the Expedition 4 seatliners to the Soyuz return vehicle attached to the station marked the official exchange of crews. Endeavour Pilot Mark Kelly and Mission Specialist Linda Godwin used the shuttle's robotic arm to lift the Raffaello Multi-Purpose Logistics Module from the shuttle payload bay and attach it to a berth on the station's Unity node. The crews began unloading supplies the same day. EVA: 4 hours, 12 minutes -- Endeavour astronauts Linda Godwin and Dan Tani completed a four-hour, 12-minute spacewalk to install insulation on mechanisms that rotate the International Space Station's main solar arrays. The two spacewalkers stopped at a stowage bin to retrieve a cover that had been removed from a station antenna during an earlier flight, and after its return to Earth, may be reused. Godwin and Tani also performed a "getahead;" task, positioning two switches on the station's exterior to be installed on a future shuttle mission, STS-110. The spacewalk completed a record year with 18 spacewalks conducted: 12 originating from the shuttle and six from the station. Mission managers extended Endeavour's flight to a duration of 12 days to allow Endeavour's crew to assist with additional maintenance tasks on the station, including work on a treadmill and replacing a failed compressor in one of the air conditioners in the Zvezda Service Module.

Flight

STS-108

Commander Dominic Gorie Pilot Mark Kelly MS MS MS MS MS MS MS MS

Linda Godwin Daniel Tani Yuri Onufrienko up Carl Walz up Daniel Bursch up Frank Culbertson down Mikhail Turin down Vladimir Dezhurov down

KSC Launch Date KSC Landing Purpose / Main Payload

8.9.00 20.9.00

ISS Servicing Crew Rotation ISS Configuration Post STS 105, the previous mission

The astronauts and cosmonauts completed the transfer of more than 5,000 pounds of supplies and material from Endeavour's mid-deck and the Raffaello Multi-Purpose Logistics Module to the station. Then the crew packed up the Raffaello module with items bound for a return trip to Earth.

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Measuring and Surveying on Stamps by guest contributor Fritz Kressler Dr Fritz D. Kessler of Leverkusen in Germany, who has previously contributed two lengthy learned articles to these pages (e.g. on Calendar reform in 2006) now offers you what he says is his final great piece of research— he is 88 – the relevance of which to science is self evident. That stamps can tell stories is a known statement. Less well known is the fact that philately also gives us information about measuring, e.g. the invention of the "hodometer". The oldest "model" of a hodo-, odoor mileometer meter is shown on a 1953 stamp of the People's

Mileometers existed also at the time of August d. Starken (1670-1733), elector of Saxony and King of Poland. Responsible for the construction of these mileometers was his architect Adam as shown on this 1971 stamp of the former DDR Friedrich Zürner (1679 1742). Zürcher defined the new measurement the distance travelled by the single rotation of the wheel with a radius of 3,53 m the "Rute" (c. 10-14 ft). In this way and by decree of the ruler of the country the roads of Saxony were now 'measured'. Beautiful and ornate postal mileometer were erected, also for the distance of a quarter and half a mile, as seen on this 1984 set of the DDR.

pointing to the period of the first emperors of China, third century BC. On a one-axle-wheeled-vehicle a counter is mounted which measures the distance by the rotations of the wheel. Simpler in its construction is the odometer, (shown on a Greek stamp of 2006) in ve nte d a bo ut one hundred years later by Heron of Alexandria (Old Greek Technique).

Distinctly recognisable on separate geodetic pillars even information on hourly distances was given.

Republic

China,

The "taximeter" precisely drawn and described by M.P. Vitruvius (10 AD) in his work "De Architectura", Vol.IX was already in use when M.V. Agrippa, who was of the same age, ordered the first road map to be drawn for the Roman Empire. Distances on Roman Roads were measured in miles. An example is a beautiful stamp from Spain in 1984 from showing the nun Egeria on her way to the "Holy Land" riding a donkey. According to t h e s t a m p description she passes a milestone of the "Via Hispania", built by the "Legio Hispania IX". The Roman basic measure, the "old-Roman" mile was the equivalent of 1000 (mille) double paces or to 479m, which was in force until the first meterconvention. This distance, however varied according to the law of the country.

It seems suitable to mention here another, modern odometer depicted on the 2004 Indian block of stamps: see more about this below, some pages on. This mileometer was used at the Great Indian Triangulation at the end of the 19th century. Although a little hidden it gives relevant information for today's use of road construction and land survey. The closer investigation of a French stamp, issued on the occasion of the 10 th Congress for weights and measures 1954 in Paris should also be of interest: Behind a globe an angel-like figure is measuring with dividers the quadrant of a meridian. Fascinating is the text which reads: "A tout les temps - à tout les 24

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peuples" (for all times and for all peoples), so the allegory is actually signifying the "systĂ¨me metrique". The phrase was coined by A.C. Condorcet (1743-1793) who was then President of the French National Assembly in 1792. On the occasion of the bicentenary of the French Revolution in 1989 he is portrayed on a block of four stamps. The picture of the "Globe" on the stamp of 10 th Congress for weights and measures was, first of all, to be a reminder of the Greek philosopher Parmenides (6th cent. BC) and his statement "the earth is a sphere". This was taken up and confirmed by Eratosthenes (3rd cent. BC) in his calculation of the earth being a sphere.

In pursuing this topic we find that the French stamp is similar to the one of Argentina in 1948. On the occasion of the Pan-American Congress for Cartography Argentina chose a stamp depicting a globe with dividers above a map! Another stamp at the event of this congress makes the leap into modern times quite clear: The mythological "Hero" Atlas carries the firmament on his shoulders, actually the "earth" is a sphere. France however, wanted to express something else with the stamp mentioned above: Not man is the measure of all things, he through whom the whole jumble of different measurements like span, hand's breadth, yard, foot, etc. were invented, the Earth but is the foundation on which the allegoric figure measures with the dividers exactly that part of the quadrant of the meridian as defined by the National Assembly (see above). At this point too, the Greek philosopher Hipparchos of NizĂ¤a (2nd cent. BC) needs to be mentioned. A stamp issued by Greece in 1965 reminds us of his "discovery" of latitudes and longitudes, which he named "Meridians" and the "Equator" to boot. The stamp shows the coordinates by means of the

"armillarsphere" (astronomic instrument measuring spheres =Gr.-sphaira).

used

for

"From both, surveying in antiquity and astronomy, trigonometry came into existence." (Bertelsmann Lex.) The Dutchman Wilibrord Snell van Rojen, lat. Snellius (1591-1626) carried out the first survey between Alkmaar and Leiden by means of the base-line and trigonometry. Since the time of Eratosthenes nineteen centuries before, the survey between Malvoisine and Amiens (1669/79) by the French astronomer and geodesist J. Picard (1620-1682) was the foundation of a first exact and modern fixing of the circumference of the earth at 39,800 km. His work was completed in 1689 by the director of the Paris observatory J.D. Cassini (1625-1712). His son and successor C.F. Cassini caused in 1744 the great survey of France to be done by means of trigonometry and so first ordnance map of France was made. J.D. Cassini is depicted in a set called "Important Persons" who visited the twin-islands of St. Pierre et Miquelon (stamp shown issued in 1968) onthe NE coast of Canada. With wig and compass he is characterised as a contemporary of Newton and geodesist as well. With his final definition of the Mars Parallax (21.07.1678), Cassini most probably wanted to find out with these calculations the radius of earth. Almost at the same time, in 1672, the calculation of the Mars parallax was done by J. Richer (1630-1696) in Peru, which was such an important matter for the astronomers. The measuring of sections of the meridian arc, i.e. the connecting line between the two poles received new impetus because of the controversy between the two astronomers Isaac Newton (1643-1727) and Christiaan Huygens (1629-1695), concerning Newton's theory gravity (1678) and the flattening of the earth.

Monaco 1987 and Netherlands 1928

To settle the dispute once and for all the "Academie Royale de Sciences" sent two expeditions to measure the length of a meridian degree close to the Equator and near the Arctic Circle. The theory was proven correct. Of the two expeditions one group under the leadership of Pierre Moreau de Maupertuis (1698 1759) together with A. Celsius (1701-1744)) went from 1736 till 1737 25

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to Lapland. On the 250th anniversary (1986) Finland marked this event by a special stamp issue. The other expeditionary group were to measure the length of a degree of meridian at the equator in the highlands of Quito (or "the Lands of the Equator"). Ecuador (1936) commemorated this second expedition arranged by The Royal Academy of Sciences at the bicentenary with a special issue showing the portraits of C. M. La Condamine (1701-1774), P. Bouguer (16981758) and L. Godin (1704-1760) and a map extract shown on block 126. In 1986, the 250th anniversary of this geodesic mission in Ecuador was celebrated with the issue of three stamp values, i.e. the portraits of P. V. Maldonado (1704–1748) and C. M. La Condamine and the Equator monument. The "Monumento de la Linea Ecuatorial" can be found on issues of 1949, 1953 and 1998.

Less well known in his own country, but famous for his surveys in the alpine regions is the Tyrolese Peter Anich (1723-1766). He surveyed and mapped the whole of the Tyrol. On the 1966 Austrian memorial stamp one can see the globes he made himself. The terrestrial together with the celestial globe are kept in the museum of Innsbruck.

Leonhard Euler (1707-1783) one of the most famous

mathematicians of 18th century made an essential contribution to this topic in 1735 with his work "Principes de la Trigonometrie". The French title could refer to his activity in Petersburg where he took on the department for Geography in 1735. (DDR 1983) The two friends C. F. Gauß (1777-1855) and F.W. Bessel (1784-1846), the one famous as mathematician the other as astronomer, made important contributions towards practical surveying in the kingdom of Hanover, Prussia respectively. In a collection "Den müßt ihr kennen" Gauß's survey activity is connected with the "master of arithmetic" Adam Riese (1492-1559), not because of their real importance but because both of them having had to earn their living by geodetic work.

(DDR 1977 and W.Germany 1984 & 1959) France as the actual organiser of these difficult

expeditions honoured both, Maupertuis and Condamine with a special issue in 1986. Their portraits in front of a globe remind us of the surveys of parts of 1° Longitude.

The few geodisists found on stamp images were exactly those who were epoch-making and of influence far beyond the boundaries of their home countries.

Croatia for example drew in 1943 the attention on Ruder Boskovic (1711-1787). The stamp portrays him

as astronomer and rightly so, because he founded the observatory of Bergamo. Employed by the former papal states he surveyed the distance between Rimini and Rome which included the difficult crossing of the Apennines between the years 1751-1753. He died shortly before the introduction of the Metric System.

Yugoslavia honoured the Slovene Juri Vega (or Georg Baron of Vega (1754-1802) for surveying the East Alps. On his 200th birthday (1954) he is portrayed on the stamp set of "Famous Persons". and by Slovenia in 1994.

The Struve family was as important to the Russians as were The Cassinis in the fields of Geodesy and Astronomy. Friedrich Georg Wilhelm Struve (17931864) for instance, was the spiritual Father of surveying the 52nd parallel between Greenwich and Warsaw, which was only finalised in 1863/4. (USSR 1964) Parallel to the measuring of grade lines "triangulationsurvey" became almost a race between various countries. On the initiative of Cassini France was the first country having produced a map of her territory on a scale 1:86 4000. In England major-general William Roy (1726-1790) started in 1783 the so-called "Principal Triangulation of Great Britain", (Perier), not fully utilised until 1858. Especially well depicted on the Indian stamps (shown above on page 24) is the "Great Indian Survey" of 1804 under Colonel W. Lambton on the occasion of its bicentenary: "The foundation of future topographical surveys". Lambton and his Indian surveyors managed to survey the distance of over 1000 km from Cape Comorin to Mt Everest. The triptych suggests the triangulation network with underlying odometer and sextant. Another bicentenary, "200 years Hydrography", was celebrated by Norway 1985 with a stamp showing sextant and a hydrographic map. 26

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Unique by way of content is Austria’s 1967 commemorative on the occasion of 150 years of the land register, i.e. the empire of Austria concluded in 1817 the cartographic registration of all her provinces, 50 years after the death of Peter Anich (q.v.). The Michel-catalogue remarks of this unique special issue: "The monument was erected at the northern end of the base route Wien-Neustadt for the calculation of basic or flat rates" (Trigonometric Point). Cyprus celebrated 1979 the centenary of land registration by Lord H.H. Kitchener (1850-1916): his portrait next to the map of Cyprus being divided into grid squares. The two end points of the base line are still marked today as 'Trigonometric Points' (TP) and are especially well secured. Triangulation network because of the "Conversion to the Metric System of Weights and Measures" is seen best on the stamp of the East-African-Community (founded 1967), Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda, on which the geodisist instructs with a sextant his assistant, who with the rod marks the point of the next triangle. Further stamps "from around the world" illustrate the art of survey…… Uruguay 1991 announces "160 Years Direction of Topography", the image showing sextant and surveyor's rod, Thailand's issue presents itself in similar fashion in 1991 and North Korea 1992 (not shown) depicts a survey troupe with orders of landsurveying.

Switzerland, one of the homes of trigonometry, presents two stamps of that kind: one in 1998 (right)

Nautical geodesy was an understood matter of fact by the great discoverers like J. Cook (1728-1779) or R. Fitzroy (1805-1916), Captain of the "Beagle". Stamps, however, concerning this topic are very rare indeed! One example of survey by ship is given by On the 150th anniversary of his death (but 1995) Hungary produced a stamp with the the surveyor Pál Vásárhely (1795-1846) on a

On a larger scale air survey was done as seen on Finish stamps (150 years land survey in 1962) or on the 1992 one of Turkish-Cyprus with a TP.

As was done during the "National Week of Cartography" the Republic of Gabon issued also a stamp for the "Year of Cartography in Africa" in 1986 showing a satellite over Gabon being part of Africa.

The next part of his feature Dr Kessler explains the process of Going Metric

shows a TP in the high mountains (graphic diagram), the other an ensemble on the topic; a Turkish stamp of 1970 shows a TP

and, once more a 1975 Swiss stamp on which a geodisist is seen against the background of mountainous contour lines. By the same idea Czechoslovakia shows contour lines on a stamp with a cheerful surveyors' team in front of it.

Hungary. issued in image of ship.

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ASTEROIDS Some Bits and Pieces

New ASSS Airmail Etiquette

Above is a reproduction of Alec Bartos’ specially commissioned design for ASSS use in 2009, the 40th anniversary of the landing of Apollo XI. For full details see page 34 of Orbit for January. If you wish to order some copies for your own use please email Alec in Romania at alec.bartos@gmail.com.

Is there a Chandra Stamp ?

Bert van Eijck writes to ask if there is portrait stamp for 1983 Nobel prize winner Subrahmanyan Chandrasekar (1910-95) the astrophysicist whose named is connected with STS-93, the “Chandra” Mission : see Orbit for January page 19. Bert is aware of this Indian stamp for Samanta Chandrasekar (1835-1904) who was known as “the greatest naked eye astronomer”. On the stamp we see stars and a so-called Gola Yantra which he used for measuring planetary positions. Bert wonders if there is a family connection between the two men ?

Ad Astra Journal Published by A.I.A.

The first edition (November 2008) of this new full colour journal has been produced by our newly formed sister society in Italy - Associazione Italiana Astrofilatelia. It is a bilingual production with almost all text both in Italian and in English and is available by email from former ASSS member Umberto Cavallaro, who is pictured on the front cover with fellow AIA members who had the pleasure of meeting veteran astronaut Walter Cunningham in Rome. The journal also includes an interesting feature interviewing US space stamps designers Paul and Chris Calle. For access to AIA material see www.asitaf.it and ucavallaro@alice.it.

Shuttles for Sale

The Times of 19.12.08 carried an article “Nice Runner,

278 million miles, one owner, just £27m, informing that NASA is now looking for homes for its three remaining shuttle craft Endeavour, Atlantis and Discovery once they are retired, scheduled for late 2010. One is already earmarked for the Smithsonian Institute. 28

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How Czechoslavakia celebrated Soviet and other Spaceflight Achievement Brief Historical Context

the first manned spaceflight (SG 1220/1 on 13.4.61)

Czechoslovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe that existed from October 1918 (upon declaring its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire) until 1992 (with a government-in-exile during the World Later in the same year two stamps marked the War II period). triumphant visit of Gagarin to various From 1945–1948 Czechoslovakia was a country European capital cities governed by a coalition government with Communist including Prague : SG ministers (including the prime minister and minister of interior) playing leading roles. Then from 1948–1989 it 1237/8 on 22.6.61. was a Communist country with a centrally planned economy (and from 1960 onwards officially a Socialist Republic). On January 1, 1993, Czechoslovakia peacefully split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Ex Wikipedia

A second long set, issued on 26.3.62 (SG 1285-90, below) acknowledges American achievement for the first time e.g. showing Thor and Telstar 1 as well as Soviet Cosmos, Luna and proposed flights.

Czechoslovakia was amongst the first counties to follow the Soviet Union with space issues after the launch of the first unmanned satellites in October and November 1957 and for many years thereafter was very faithful to the USSR in honouring its space achievements . Its first space issue was on 20.12.57 when SG 1012/4 marked International Geophysical Year with three stamps, the highest value of which referred to Sputnik 2, though it shows a generic or fantasy version of a space rocket owing to the then secrecy in which the Soviet programme was shrouded. After a couple of symbolic spaces issues for international conferences in 1958 and 1959, the failure (to hit the Moon) of Luna 1 is ignored but the successful repeat mission Luna 2 was commemorated on 23.9.59 with SG 1111. The first long space set from this country came out on 6.3.61 with seven stamps (SG 1209-14, shown right) covering such missions as Luna 1 and 3, flights to Venus and Gagarin’s coming flight which is treated in a representational way. This same design was then reissued with different values and colours the day after

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Issues treating cosmonautics in a symbolic way followed in August and November 1962 before another long set at the start of the following year: SG 1349-54 on 25.4.63, a sort of Cosmonautics Day issue, covering Sputniks, and proposed flights to Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. The associated mini-sheet which uses the 1Kcs design for Mars exploration appears on page 28 of this issue.

For the joint flight of Vostoks 5 and 6, a design used in the 1962 long set is amended with different colours and values and added cosmonautsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; faces : SG 1367-8 on 26.6.63.

Almost exactly a year after the 1963 long set the biggest space set yet was issued to mark all the USSR and US manned flights to date: SG 141623 on 27.4.64 e.g. Gordon Cooper in Mercury 7. This was complemented on 12.12.64 by this mini-sheet celebrating the first three man flight in October 64.:

By now a very distinctive style of space issue can be detected with fine line drawings being used with muted colours to create an engraved-like appearance and additionally making each stamp very tactile. The first space issue of the following year (Year of the Quiet Sun) includes stamps which depict the future of space travel (SG 1466-72 on 15.3.65) as well current satellites like the Luna, and Tiros and the Kosmos series (60h and 2Kcs values, respectively).

The following monthâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s traditional April space issue (SG 1480-3 on 17.4.65) concentrates on the first two man flights by the USSR and by the US, showing Belayev with Leonov on his first space-walk and Grissom & Young.

There is no April 1966 issue with the long space set not coming out until September of that year, again marking international achievement: SG 1606-11 on

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26.9.66 with a set which is much smaller in size than what we had become used to. The 1967 Space Research issue (SG 1639-44 of 24.3.67) comprises half a dozen very busy stamps with loads of detail etched in relating to mainly American manned and unmanned flights such as Gemini and Apollo and OGO5 and Telstar...

Nothing then until the celebration of Apollo XI’s Moon landing. SG 1839-40 of 21.7.69 certainly cannot be accused of being at all cliché (like so many issues at the time), showing scenes from the surface of the Moon over aerial views of Manhattan and J.F.K. airport and having labels appended underneath each representing man on the moon symbolically.

cooperative programme is also the subject of the single space issue the next year with the same design format : SG 1997 of 15.11.71. 1973 saw a real Cosmonautics Day issue with six stamps on 12th April as SG 2094-99 which, beside issues for Venus 8, Intercosmos 1 and Lunakhod, includes the very remarkable and possibly macabre and controversial tributes to the US astronauts killed in the Apollo 1 fire, to the cosmonauts of the Soyuz 1 and 11 disasters and to Yuri Gagarin, who had died five years before. Curiously this stamp shows a cosmonaut dying amid entangled parachute lines. Three of these designs were also available in block form with white plain margins. The 3 Kcs stamp for the Soyuz deaths is also available as a variety with a lined background. This single stamp is currently offered for sale by Postbeed for €16.

“very remarkable and possibly macabre and controversial tributes”

stamp

After a fleeting reference to Jules Verne with one stamp issued on 31.8.70 the space research issue for this year concentrates mainly on the Intercosmos programmes : SG 1919-24 of 30.11.70 and this international Two stamps in 1974 feature observatory antennae: SG 2162 (30.4.74 also depicting a Molniya satellite) and SG 2189 (within the 9.10.74 U.P.U. set).

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The big space event of 1975 was of course the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project which receives a five stamp issue on 30.9.75 (SG 2240 -44), which also includes images of Soviet satellites and Copernicus in the intricate symbolic and designs. The large handshake issues was also available as a souvenir sheet contains four stamps and a themed label. There is a single space issue the following year : SG 2317 on 18.12.76, a Stamp Day issue referring to Intercosmos 1, as a modern means of communication. Twenty years of space research is commemorated on 4.10.77 with five very colourful stamps (SG 2376-71) which include portraits of major space related personalitiesâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; Korolev, Gagarin, Leonov, and Armstrong with abstract illustration in the background.

A full treatment of this historic flight, the first in the manned Intercosmos series which lasted for over ten years, is given exactly a year later : SG 2449-53 on 2.3.79 which shows in great detail several aspects of the mission. The issue is complemented with an elegant minisheet, shown below in imperf format.

One of these designs (SG 2387-88 of 2.3.78) is amended and overprinted to commemorate for the first time the Intercosmos flight which carried a Czechoslovak cosmonaut, Soyuz 28 on 2nd March carrying Vladimir Remek with Soviet commander Alexei Gubarev. 32

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The following year on Cosmonautics Day an issue of five stamps marks entirely Soviet space achievement: SG 2517-21 of 12.4.80 including putting a mouse into orbit on the 50h value. This is complemented by a minisheet marking the countries which had so far participated in the Intercosmos manned programme.

Single issues in late 1982 also have space related themes : SG 2647 (29.10.82 for the 30th anniv of the Academy of Sciences) and SG 2649 for the 65th anniv of the October revolution (not shown). The fifth 28 flight striking reprising 1979.

anniversary of the Soyuz is commemorated with a mini-sheet on Cosmonautics Day 1983, the design used in the mini-sheet issued in

The Cosmonautics Day issue the following year is the fullest and busiest yet with five designs relating Salyut missions produced in triptych format either side of Intercosmos symbology, shown below and opposite top. (SG 2724-28 of 12.4.84). A handsome mini-sheet issued on 5.4.81 marks 20 years of manned spaceflight showing a smiling Yuri Gagarin, the return flight of a space capsule and emblems representing the flown cosmonauts of partner nations in the Intercosmos programme to date.

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The rest of the 1984 Cosmonautics Day issue, marking flights to Salyut.

On 12th June 1984 Czechoslovakia celebrated 110 years of the U.P.U. with a space related issue, opposite top which in its busy design includes the launch of a Soyuz rocket in the bottom right hand corner of the sheet. A year later the Cosmonautics Day theme was the investigation by probe of Halleyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Comet (below) and though there was no issue in 1986, 1987 saw 20 years of the Intercosmos Programme marked with an issue that referenced the flight of Soyuz 28 in 1978 (opposite).

The Remek/Gubarev stamp within that mini-sheet was reproduced in souvenir format for PRAGA 88 International Philatelic Exhibition with two issues of 15.11.87 and 15.6.88 with minor differences in design but both are collectable for completists. Also in 1987 a stamp for the 30th anniv of the Organisation of Socialist Countries Postal Administrations included an

aerial dish for collecting satellite data (SG 2896 of 22.9.87) as did a 27.3.89 issue (SG 29744) in an set to mark Shipping systems. The last space issue for Czechoslovakia before it divided into the Czech Republic and Slovakia was the Europa issue of 6.5.91 (SG 3059) depicting the Magion satellite. 34

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The Limits of Space Travel By John Beenen

28 July 1965, Argentina Y:226, M: 214, Sc: 2021, L:2B (Below)

Part 5: Close encounters of the Fourth kind: Abductions Encounters of the fourth kind, mostly called ‘abductions’ by their nature of mystery speak the most to people. On the other hand they are the most suspect as especially these can be the product of tormented minds. In any case they are attractive for our area of collection as very nice looking stamps are issued in this field. The most well-known are a series of blocks of Nicaragua describing a couple of very strange ‘encounters’ indeed (9324 NIC 1B/8B). (503) A 17 year old student was riding his motorcycle

near the city of Paiana when it began to stall, and suddenly noticed a bizarre looking creature by the side of the road. It was very tall, six or seven feet tall with a melon shaped head and long stark white hair. Most intriguing of all it appeared to have three eyes, all staring fixed without moving. There were reports of a luminous flying object travelling at high speed near that area at the time of his reported encounter. 6 May 1973, Texas, USA

Y: 239A, M: 221, Sc: 2027, L: 8B (see top of left column p 36)

19 December 1961, New Hampshire, USA: Y: 234, M: 219, Sc:2025, L: 5B (above(

(501) A married couple driving home through the White Mountains noticed they were being followed by what looked like an aeroplane without wings with flashing coloured lights. This object began to glow and a sense of drowsiness came over them. 35 miles down the road they regained their faculties, and could not explain their loss of time and place. Under hypnosis by a doctor their recalled being stopped and abducted by figures in dark jackets, short in stature and hairless. The doctor was convinced they did not lie.

(504) A family was returning home when they noticed what appeared to be a light in the sky that seemed to follow them for many miles until they reached home. Years later, under hypnosis, one of the women revealed she had seen two aliens at the time, approximately three feet in height, large heads, long dark clay like nails on each of their long curved fingers, and very thin almost skeletal, giving the appearance that if you were to touch them they would pop. Although they never spoke they seemed to communicate telepathically.

21 August 1956, Kentucky, USA

Y: 227, M: 216, Sc: 2022, L: 3B (right)

(502) At a farmhouse near Hockinsville, a family saw a bright light in the sky descending near them – then some strange creatures coming towards them. They were described as being just over three foot tall with huge elephant like ears. The family had a good reputation. No corrobation of their sightings could be found. 35

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ape-like creatures with glowing green eyes. They were between seven and eight feet tall, covered with long grey hair, with arms so long they practically dragged on the ground. Upon investigation, police reported hearing something crushing into the nearby underbrush, but no evidence of the reported creatures could be found.

7 November 1989, Kansas, USA: Y: 239, M: 219, Sc: 2025, L: 7B (above)

27 September 1976, Canaries

Y: 237, M: 220, Sc: 2026, L: 6B (above)

(507) Two women driving home on interstate slightly after midnight suddenly observed two bright lights in the sky. Under hypnosis, they both related similar reports of being taken aboard a craft by alien life forms. These extraterrestrials were reported as being slender, with large hairless heads, slanted non blinking eyes, and four long slender fingers on each hand. Neither woman had ever seen or expressed any belief in UFOâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s before.

(505) A respected medical doctor and his driver spotted what they described as an enormous transparent UFO hovering over the Canaries with live figures inside. They were described as being human in appearance except for their wing like appendages at the end of their arms and their large bright eyes. Other witnesses corroborated their testimony of the UFO sighting.

(508) 21 July 1991, Missouri, USA Y: 225, M: 217, Sc: 2020, L: 1B

25 October 1978, Pennsylvania, USA Y: 231, M: 215, Sc: 2023, L: 4B (above)

(506) Several eyewitnesses reported seeing a red ball of light hovering above a field on the outskirts of Uniontown. As they approached it they saw two large

Three young girls noticed a white oval shaped light moving rapidly in a corner of their yard, then standing there was a strange creature. Each girl, separately described this creature as thin with long slender fingers, bald egg shaped head, with ridges along the top. It was also described as having a transparent abdominal area. All witnesses were considered as reliable and displayed considerable consternation and fright after this encounter.

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Also a series of Paraguay (Weebau

885/93, Y: 1626/32, PA 797/8, M: 3051/9) shows a

number of extremely creepy aliens which you would not like to meet in the dark (509, 510).

The most classical story of an abduction is that of the married couple Betty and Barney Hill on 19 September 1961 between Montreal and Portsmouth in the state of New Hampshire. After a couple of hours driving on a deserted highway they saw in the air a lighted, hovering object. Hill stopped the car and looked at the object with binoculars. Betty Hill, a convinced UFO believer, was certain that this object was a flying saucer. They saw creatures behind the windows. Frightened they drove away in panic. Being home they noticed that they appeared to have lost some hours. During the next few weeks especially Betty behaved in a very confused way and dreamt that in the night in question they were taken away from their car by aliens. After some time they sought psychiatric help. Under hypnosis both told a remarkably identical story: they had been laid on an operating table in the craft and from Barney sperm and from Betty eggs cells were taken away. They described the aliens as small, with very large eyes, nearly no nose and greyish of colour, dressed in similar suits. It has since been proven that no such hypnosis techniques are valid and also Betty has been described as mentally very unstable. In 1966 John Fuller wrote a rather sensational story about this abduction, called: ‘The interrupted Journey’. On the Internet I found a list of ten of the most striking abductions: Some of them have occurred a very long time ago, but an interesting case happened in 1970 1970 in Imjarvi, Finland, where a farmer, Esko Viljo, and a lumberjack, Aarno Heinonen, were ski-ing and suddenly found themselves amidst a strange, red mist. From this mist loomed a flying saucer transmitting a dazzling bright ray of light, through which the men lost consciousness. Later they awakened on the slope of a mountain. Both claimed to have seen a troll like figure. They were treated for sunburn but the doctors were also thinking of exposure to radioactivity. Heinonen later declared that he had been in a strange space

surrounded by aliens who had told him that they had put an apparatus in his head to ease communication. Since then, the Finn claimed to have specific psychic gifts. But all can also be the effect of a severe sunburn, of course. However, the event appeared on the sheet of Tanzania as 9900 TAN 4. . Even more appealing is a case from New York of 1989 where Linda Napolitano (Linda Cortile) from Manhattan allegedly had been transported by aliens from the window of her apartment through the air to a UFO, where she received an intensive medical examination. In itself this could have been the result of a unbridled imagination as it would not have been observed by a spectator who saw a woman flying through the air escorted by a greyish creature. Also corroboration came from not one spectator but two policemen. Unfortunately, at investigation, these spectator(s) never have been traced and the story was told by the very doubtful Budd Hopkins as said before. In short, this was probably completely invented or the was the result of a disturbed mind. Also from The Netherlands some cases of such abductions have been reported. Since her childhood Saskia de Jong had seen light bulbs changing into small creatures whom with she played. At an older age she was abducted to a space ship where she underwent all kinds of medical investigation. She even claims to have carried a foetus of a hybrid child and has seen this child afterwards. Further examination showed that she had small implants. Medical investigation of such implants by other people only increased the obscurity because of the fact that the presence of such metal particles in the body was inexplicable. However, other ‘implants’ were found to be all sorts of metal pieces such as bits of staples, needles and nails which had been introduced unnoticed into her body. Strangely enough mother and daughter showed the same experiences. Also a certain Ben A. speaks about such encounters. However, their stories are rather similar to that of Kathy Davis (pseudonym of Debby Thomey) who claims that under hypnosis egg cells of her womb were taken and later fertilized hybrids (partly Earth, partly alien) were replaced in her womb to be taken out afterwards. This was allegedly to have taken place more than once and also she claimed to have seen the children. 37

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Unfortunately this story is anothers of Budd Hopkins ! Another such case is reported from the Soviet Union. Viktor Kostrykin from Naltsjik allegedly saw a UFO on the night of 6 to 7 July 1968 at Chroesjta-Zyrt (in itself the name of a space city). An alien in a silver shining space suit called him in the space ship, where also five other aliens were present. They took a piece of skin from him and also rooted about with their hands in his body. They claimed to need the piece of skin to cultivate human entities from. After that experience he was put down at an other place. After this time his abilities for extra-sensorial observations had increased strongly and he could remove pain, heal patients and staunch bleedings. Also he could stop engines with just his mind, trace lost objects and ‘hear’ what was spoken at distances, even through concrete walls. In the meantime it is not surprising that Kostrykin also internationally is a strong advocate of the phenomenon UFO. In the book ‘The Soviet dossier UFO’ of Colonel Marina Popovitch, also more of such interesting cases are mentioned. Some others: Vladimir Prokovjef uit Zaporozje North of the Black Sea on 29 May 1989 went home when he saw some figures in the field about 100 meters away. The two men and a woman invited him to fly with their space ship. He would not do that and tried to drive away on his motorcycle but it was lifted and brought into the space ship. Afterwards he did not remember anything and was left behind some 15 km away in a wheat field, without any trace of a motor track and no increase of the amount of kilometres on his mileage recorder. After that he showed many signs of physical inabilities and also his watch was not running properly. Even less comfortable was the encounter of Leonid Koeznetsov from St.Petersburg searching with his wife and dog for cranberries when they discovered a ball shaped vehicle from which three very long creatures were descending with long arms and many fingers. At first the creatures did not seem to take much notice of them but broke off branches from a fir tree putting them in trays. One of the creatures tried to make contact but the dog made to attack the creature and just disappeared in the air when he had jumped two meters. At the last moment the man tried to shoot at the creature but the shot did not go off. The subsequent day returning to the place they found the remains of the dog with its belly cut open and the fir completely charred. In the surroundings he also found that a piece of soil of about 6 m 2 and 40 to 50 cm depth was missing.

Anatoli Popov from Kirgizia describes a morepeaceful encounter with a ‘top like’ space ship. Approaching it and touching it he found it opened and he saw two extraterrestrial entities. He felt an intense sense of quietness and got the idea that the two strangers were a little bit afraid of him. He sat down and felt hungry and received a dish with a kind of cereal It looked like a giant wheat grain with white roots. He pulled them off and ate them, the taste was a little bit sweet. After ‘dinner’ they let him go. According his feelings he had been inside for not more than 10 minutes but at home he appeared to have been away fro two nights. Finally the story of Dina Sjarkirova from Tadjikistan who on 28 May 1990 walked home from school. Back at home she became very hot and got a heavy headache and saw a dazzling bright light. When she opened her eyes she saw a large sphere in front of her window, from which two robots descended with metal like sparkling suits and besides a woman in a black and white dress, who ordered her to fly away with them. She refused, but when she regained consciousness she felt a severe pain in her right leg and was transported to the hospital quickly. At the leg an orange coloured symbol, looking like a brand, was visible. The skin, however, was smooth as before and the spot was not removable anymore. It is striking that the aliens as described show more or less all the same characteristics. Most look more or less like foetuses, that is to say, having bald, large eyes, large head and communicating telepathically. Hence, psychologists think that in such a kind of psychical disorder possibly the archetype of a foetus is reproduced. However, this does not count for the world of Viktor Kostrykin (top left) who describes his entities as well shaped, slim with majestic gestures, sympathetic and with a peculiar radiant warmth. But they also had large eyes widening to the temples, giving the impression that they could look in all directions. Their hair was grey and cut shortly. Their face was without wrinkles and youthful. But in the stories also other types appear, from giants three meters of 38

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length to dwarfs of 90 cm, but all with very long arms. At the time ufology is already so sophisticated that experts classify the entities into three main types; Their general name is EBE’’s (Extraterrestrial Biological Entities): 1. ‘Greys’, also called: ‘Alpha-Aliens’ or Insectoïds. 2. These can be even further classified in three subclasses. Their general characteristics are: bald, large head, greyish appearance, limited facial characteristics, such as: no nose, and large slant-eyed. They communicate telepathically. They do not show genetic characteristics and reproduce by cloning. They show no emotions.. Real ‘believers’ even claim to know where they coming from, viz., - The A-type of the Zeta Reticuli system, the star Bernard, - The longer B-type from Orion and - The C-type from a star from the shoulder of Orion, Bellatrax. The ‘greys’ especially are present since the evidence of the Hills, and after 1977 even more fed by the Spielberg movie ‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’. These types are subject of a large number of stamps and sheets e.g. from the former Soviet territories of Komi, Tadjikistan, Tatarstan and Mordovia and also appear on the stamps, mentioned earlier, from Paraguay. It is also interesting that most stories from the Soviet Union originate from these Republics. 2. ‘Humanoïds’, also ‘Nordics’, ‘Blondes’ or ‘Beta-Aliens’. These are also subdivided in three classes. They tend to look like humans and most of the time are friendly. They often are described as real ‘Arier’, the ‘White Giants’ Also the stars in successful TV and movie series often show much similarity to these types. 3. ‘Reptile likes’ or ‘Gamma-Aliens’.

They show similarity to reptiles, are hostile most of the time and consider humanity as a totally inferior race. But reptilelikes are not always hostile considering for instance the movie ‘E.T.’, in which the reptile-like entity is definitely friendly. On the above shown mini-sheets from Nicaragua reptile like creatures are found. Other sources also are bringing up ‘hairy dwarfs’, robots, projections, MIB’s (Men in Black), and ‘Hooded men’. These last category of entities are often connected to near-death experiences and ask questions about life and death.

Now, what can be said about all these stories ? A down-to-earth man quickly will find an explanation in the physical constitution of somebody and I agree that in most of the cases this will be true. As matter of fact we all know that in our dreams the most peculiar events may take place, which awakened we never could have made up At the other end is it rather thrilling to believe in extraterrestrial creatures in one way or another ‘controlling’ our world.. In that way the story of the geophysician Leonid Pritzker, true or not, is very instructive: In the night of 10 to 11 February 1990, before the eyes of others in the neighbourhood, he got covered by a white, milky cloud. He fell asleep for 36 hours, got a high fever and had the feeling if his brain was cut out of his head. After that event his view on the world became totally different. He could observe extra-sensorial phenomena and could make photo’s of objects not visible with the naked eye. He also made contact with UFO’s and the entities inside them. This came together with a clear insight in the cosmos, the behaviour of human beings and the development of bio-energy. Mankind should be obliged to deliver as much bio-energy to the Universe as he takes from it. This counts for all organisms on Earth. The energy of the full knowledge has the highest energy level. Of a lower degree is the energy of feelings, and emotions. The lowest energy level is the energy of physical work If the radiation of energy of the full knowledge decreases or stops, this has to be filled up with emotional energy or energy of physical effort. Is that not possible than the bio-energy has to be completed by energy from the inside of the Earth in the form of earth quakes or similar events. That Leonid Pritzker is in the possession of special gifts is evident, but even if his contact with extraterrestrial entities is unverifiable, he sure has a point with respect to his story of the equilibrium in nature.

The sixth and last part of this paper deals with the closely related subject of Science Fiction, with a conclusion. 39

Astronomy â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the 2009 Europa Theme This year tying in with the 400th anniversary of Galileoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s first discoveries over 30 countries within the Europa family will take this as their topic with an issue or one stamp within a wider set carrying the Europa symbol and dealing with an aspect of Astronomy. Here are some examples of issues so far, taken from philatelic publications received by your Editor. In issues in 2010 we shall review all the stamps produced. See http://www.europa-stamps.blogspot.com/ for more detail

Greenland issued 19.0109

Jersey issued 10.02.09 Netherlands to be issued 07.04.09

Sweden issued 29.1.09 Liechtenstein issued 02.03.09 Denmark To be issued

Belgium to be issued 06.04.09

Finland to be issued 06.05.09 Iceland To be issued 07.05.09

Aland to be issued 08.05.09