Orbit issue 91 (October 2011)

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Editorial

ISSN 0953 1599 THE JOURNAL OF THE ASTRO SPACE STAMP SOCIETY Issue No 91 October 2011

Happy Now ?

NASA’s publication of photographs taken from as little as 21 miles above the Moon showing the Apollo landing sites and the evidence left behind surely scotches for ever the contentions of “bad astronomers” that the Moon Landings were fictitious and evidence of them faked.

Patron: Cosmonaut Georgi Grechko, Hero of the Soviet Union

COMMITTEE Chair : Margaret Morris, 55 Canniesburn Drive, Bearsden, Glasgow, Scotland G61 1RX (E-mail: mmorris671@aol.com)

Such is the clarity of the photos taken by LROC (the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter) camera in late Summer that all doubts must now be removed from the minds of sceptics as these images show the remains of ALSEPs, footprints, lunar rover tracks and of course the launchpad sections of the LMs left behind as the moonwalkers returned to their mothercraft.

Hon. Secretary: Brian J.Lockyer, 21, Exford Close,Weston-Super-Mare, Somerset BS23 4RE (E-mail : b.lockyer365@btinternet.com)

Compiler of Checklist / Hon Treasurer / Postal Packet Organiser Harvey Duncan,16, Begg Avenue, Falkirk, Scotland FK1 5DL (E-mail: Guidance3@virginmedia.com )

It should now be possible to juxtapose stamps showing the lunar sites and journeys with these photos so bringing a new perspective to displays and exhibits.

Orbit : Editor Jeff Dugdale, Glebe Cottage, Speymouth, Mosstodloch, Moray.

Scotland IV32 7LE (E-mail: jefforbited@aol.com)

Let us hope that these 21st century tangible reminders of the glorious achievements of forty years ago will inspire a new generation of astronauts to return to the Moon if only to practise those techniques that journeys to asteroids and eventually to Mars will require and will be achieved, though probably not in the lifetime of many of our members whose passion for astrophilately was born out of following live the thrilling exploits of NASA astronauts on TV and radio in the late 1960’s.

Webmaster Derek Clarke, 36 Cherryfield Road, Walkington, Dublin 12 (E-mail: dclarke36@gmail.com)

Postal Auction Organiser: David Saunders, 42 Burnet Road, Bradwell, Great Yarmouth. NR31 8SL. (E-mail davidsaunders1@hotmail.co.uk)

Overseas Representatives:

ASSS website at URL: http://www.astrospacestampsociety.com/ astrospacestampsociety@gmail.com

Australia: Charles Bromser, 37 Bridport Street, Melbourne 3205.

Belgium : Jűrgen P. Esders, Rue Paul Devigne 21-27, Boite 6, 1030 Bruxelles Eire:Derek Clarke, 36 Cherryfield Rd, Walkinstown. Dublin 12.

France: Jean-Louis Lafon, 23 Rue de Mercantour, 78310 Maurepas Netherlands: Bart Beimers, NJ Haismasrt 7, 9061 BV Gierkerk Russia: Mikhail Vorobyov, 31-12 Krupskaya Str, Kostroma United States: Dr Ben Ramkissoon, Linda Valley Villa #236 11075 Benton Street Loma Linda CA 92354-3182

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Life Members: UK - Harvey Duncan, George Spiteri, Ian Ridpath, Margaret Morris, Michael Packham, Dr W.R. Withey, Jillian Wood. Derek Clarke (Eire,) Charles Bromser (Australia.) Tom Baughn (U.S.A.,) Ross Smith (Australia,) Vincent Leung Wing Sing (Hong Kong.)

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© Copyright 2011 The Astro Space Stamp Society. No article contained herein may be reproduced without prior permission of the Author and the Society.

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Vostok 2 6th August 1961 The Soviets’ stunning success in launching Yuri Gagarin in April 1961 stole a march on the Americans who launched less spectacular ballistic flights with Mercury 3, and 4 in May and July respectively and continued to plan for John Glenn’s orbital flight in 1962, but the Soviets surprised them again with the launch of Gagarin’s back-up pilot Major Gherman Titov in the first week in August. If there had been doubts about Gagarin’s flight, as for one thing it had possibly not made a 100% orbit, Titov’s flight settled those as he was in space for more than one complete day.

Titov though possibly a better pilot than Gagarin had been made back-up for Vostok 1 for a number of political reasons including his name which had un-Russian associations—the connotations with Germany so soon after the end of WWII were unfortunate, however accidental—and because he was perceived as less working class than Gagarin, neither of which set the right propaganda message.

Reg Turnill writes in The Observer’s Spaceflight Directory (1978), “A major factor in the Soviet decision to go straight from 1 orbit to 17 (in a flight lasting 25 hours and 18 minutes) was the problem of a suitable landing site on Soviet territory if fewer orbits were done”. Though not quite so charismatic as Gagarin, Titov handled the post-flight celebrations well—the parade in Red Square and the many news conferences and celebrity visits. However what was held back from the public was that he had been seriously disoriented during the flight because of weightlessness and suffered balance problems for some time after he landed. A

further problem not encountered by Gagarin in his 108 minute flight was that as Titov slept his arms and hands floated before him and he might have accidentally touched and activated vital controls in the cramped cockpit, had he not tucked his arms into his restraining belts whilst he dozed. Like Gagarin he ejected and landed by parachute, though this fact was not disclosed for several years.

The second flight did not attract quite the same international philatelic interest as the first, but two stamps (SG 2622/3) were immediately issued by the USSR for Titov’s flight, one portraying him looking out of his porthole at a symbolic representation of his many orbits and the other showing him in military uniform and a fantasy Vostok rocket.

The first anniversary issue with a rather unimaginative design in two colours (SG 2721/2 on 7.8.62) showed the same fantasy rocket and the words “25 orbits in space”, stressing that unlike Gagarin, Titov was not a one orbit wonder !!

Postcard showing Titov (left) and Gagarin reading about Soviet spaceflight success in the press.

It carries the Gagarin issue from April and the higher of the two values issued on 8th August for Titov’s flight.

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Vostok 2 some 1960’s I nternational Issues

Albania SG 764 30.7.63

Czechoslovakia SG 1288 26.3.62

Note how the designers of all these stamps are hampered by a complete lack of knowledge of the secret shape of the Vostok rocket and craft. The best some can do beyond drawing Jules Verne-type fantasy rockets is a collar and thimble Vostok, gleaned from an article once on show in a Red Square parade, as deliberate misinformation to watchers.

Cuba SG 1059 26.2.63 E. Germany 603 11.12.61 Totally captionless !

Bulgaria SG 1272/3 20.12.61

Poland SG 1249/50 24.8.61—stylish, with a hint of “we came in peace for all mankind” about the 60zl value N Viet Nam SG 186 17.10.61 N. Korea SG 384 13.3.62

Hungary SG 1844 27.10.62

Three more from the E. German set of six issued 11.12.61 showing Titov getting a hero’s welcome in Berlin and in Leipzig

Romania SG 2864 11.9.61 and left SG 3096 of 15.1.64

Issues showing Titov’s celebrity tours

Jordan SG 635 20.1.65 was one of the few non-Soviet states to commemorate Titov

Mongolia did not commemorate Vostok 2 until 28.12.66 and then produced one of the first stamps to show the true shape of the craft (SG 429)

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N. Viet Nam SG N220/1 12.6.62 : Titov with crowds in Hanoi and being decorated by Ho Chi Minh

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Vostok 2 6th August 1961 Anniversary Issues

Above left, postal stationery item marking the 15th anniversary of Titov’s flight. Above right 1986 Soviet Postal card with imprinted 4 kopek stamp marking 25 years . Below fdc of 6.8.01 bearing the mini-sheet issued to mark the 40th anniversary with in right foreground a portrait of Titov in his 60’s (He held the record for being the youngest person in space for many years, being only 25 when he launched).

Below left part of Russian mini-sheet issued in 2010 to mark the 75th anniversary of Titov’s birth though he had died ten years before.

Below 2001 issued postal stationery item celebrating Titov’s flight bearing Millennium stamp and 2002 Cosmonautics Day cancels relating to Plesetsk Cosmodrome.

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the transposition and docking manoeuvre, which they did perfectly.

Moon-walking into History

Apollo 8 in the December of that year was the first real milestone in spaceflight since that of Yuri Gagarin back in 1961.

Astronauts Frank Borman, James Lovell and William Anders captured the imagination of the world, as they left Earth orbit for a three day flight to the Moon some 38,676 miles away from Earth. On Christmas Eve they entered lunar orbit and disappeared behind the Moon. The highlight of their 20 lunar orbits was the crew’s message of goodwill on Christmas Day, with Borman reading from Genesis from the Bible. ‘In the beginning God created the Heaven and the Earth…’ They left lunar orbit and headed back to Earth and a splashdown in the Pacific. The mission had lasted 6days, 3hrs, 42sec. The crew were hailed as the ‘Columbuses of the space age’.

A child of the 60’s, like many ASSS members, Dave Saunders recollects the Apollo programme keenly and now explains how he has managed to meet some of his heroes from those flights...

I can remember as a child, looking up to the night sky and following a small star-like object as it passed slowly across the dark star-lit sky above us. It was the summer of 1962 and our neighbour had called me and my father out to watch one of the early Russian cosmonauts as he passed over the East of England in his Vostok spacecraft. I think it was their third flight, so it would have been cosmonaut Andrian Nikolayev. I can remember thinking at the time, I wonder if we will ever fly a man to the Moon. Little did I know that in just 7 years time, I would be standing in the very same spot in our garden watching the Moon in the night sky on the evening of 20 th July 1969, knowing that two men had just landed there. Neither did I ever dream that one day I would actually meet Cosmonaut Nikolayev in person, and also Buzz Aldrin who was one of the two American Astronauts up there that night.

On the Apollo 9 flight in March 1969, Astronauts James McDivitt, David Scott and Russell Schweickart orbited the Earth to test-fly the Lunar Module in Earth orbit. The main objective was to undock the Lunar Lander from the Command Module and fire the descent engines, a task performed perfectly and at one time the two craft were 75 miles apart. Then the two craft re-docked safely and the crew transferred back to the Command Module.

The flight was a spectacular success.

From that first night in August 1962, I have been interested in the age of Space Exploration. I had just started a new hobby of autograph collecting at the time, and decided that I wanted to get the autographs of everyone who had flown into space. For many years I wrote to dozens of Cosmonauts and Astronauts for their signatures, and received good replies from most of them. It wasn’t however until 1990 that I met my first live Astronaut. Charlie Duke the Lunar Module pilot of Apollo 16 and the 10th man to walk on the Moon, was giving a talk in near -by Norwich. So my good friend Tony and myself decided to go along to the talk and try to meet him afterwards. The lecture was great with slides on his adventure and a questions and answer session at the end. I can remember asking him if he had any Moon rock or dust from his flight. He replied saying that all materials brought back from the Moon had to be surrendered to NASA. However, they did let him keep the lunar maps he had used, and he said you could feel the fine Moondust on the surface of them. After the talk was over, the organizer of the event introduced Tony and myself to Charlie. He was very obliging and signed several photos and mission stamp covers for our collections. We both had out photos taken with him and I can still remember the tingle that ran through me when I shook hands with one of the twelve men who had walked on the Moon.

In May 1969, Apollo 10 with its crew of Tom Stafford, John Young and Eugene Cernan re-visited the Moon. When they reached lunar orbit the Lunar Lander, nicknamed ‘Snoopy’ undocked and fired its descent engines. This took astronauts Stafford and Cernan to within 10 miles of the lunar surface. They flew over the Sea of Tranquillity, the proposed landing site for the Apollo 11 mission. Stafford fired the ascent engine for 15 seconds to simulate the rise from the lunar

The Apollo Moon missions started in October 1968, when Apollo 7 carrying astronauts Walter Schirra, Don Eisele and Walter Cunningham blasted off from Cape Kennedy. The objective of their mission was to simulate in Earth orbit the extraction of a Lunar Module (which was not flown) and

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surface. They docked with John Young who was orbiting in the Command Module, and after 31 lunar orbits they left the Moon and three days later made a safe splashdown back on Earth.

caused the mission to abort. After many days of high tension Lovell, Haise and Command Module pilot Jack Swigert all returned safely to Earth.

The stage was now set for Apollo 11, and on 16th July 1969 the Saturn V rocket lifted off from Pad 39A at Kennedy Space Center to start man’s greatest adventure. After three days the crew of Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins reached lunar orbit. The climax approached as Armstrong and Aldrin entered the Lunar Lander ’Eagle’ and after separation, Aldrin fired the engine to start their descent. Seconds from touchdown Armstrong could see that the autopilot was taking Eagle into a boulder strewn crater. He took partial control amid clouds of dust, and landed the craft with about 15 seconds of fuel left.

The time in the UK was 21.18 hrs on 20th July. They spoke to Mission Control saying ‘Tranquillity base here, the Eagle has landed’. The Cap-Com for the landing was Charlie Duke, who replied ‘Roger, we copy you down Eagle, you’ve got a bunch of guys here about to turn blue, we’re breathing again’.

The next Moon landing was

by Alan Shepard and Edgar Mitchell on the Apollo 14 mission in February 1971.

Along with Stuart Roosa their Command Module pilot, they reached the Moon after three days. On 5th February Shepard and Mitchell stepped out onto the Fra Mauro region, and after two Moonwalks lasting 9hrs 24min, they returned to their lander ‘Antares’ and took off back to meet Roosa and the Command ship, and returned to Earth.

The Apollo 15 flight was in July 1971, less than 7 weeks after the ill fated Russian Soyuz 11 disaster, when all three Cosmonauts were killed in re-entry. Astronauts David Scott, James Irwin and Alfred Worden were on the most complex mission to date, as this landing would involve the ‘Lunar Rover’ letting them travel much further on the lunar surface. Scott and Irwin landed on Hadley Rille on 31st July. Irwin pulled the rover from the base of Lunar Lander ‘Falcon’ and soon they were taking television viewers for a spectacular ride to the edge of the Hadley Rille crater. In all they made three Moonwalks lasting 17hrs 36min. After a total of 66hrs 55min on the Moon.

Viewers saw the first Lunar lift-off, from a camera mounted on the rover.

After a break of about six hours, Armstrong descended the ladder on Eagle. His right boot stepped onto the lunar dust at 03.56 British time on 21st July. As he stepped onto the surface he said ‘That’s one small step for (a) man, one giant leap for mankind’. Later he was joined by Aldrin who took the TV camera and placed it on a tripod some distance away, so both astronauts could be seen.

Armstrong’s moonwalk lasted 2hrs 31 min 40 sec, with Aldrin’s lasting 1hr 33 min. With a total of 21hrs 36 min on the Moon, they fired their ascent stage engine to place Eagle back in lunar orbit and their rendezvous with Collins. He had been so near yet so far away, the only person in the civilised world who was unable to see the Moon landing, as there was no TV in the Command ship. Three days later when they splashed down, they were picked up by USS Hornet, where they had to undergo quarantine period

Apollo 16 saw John Young and Charlie Duke walk on the Moon, after an 11 day epic flight.

Their craft ‘Orion’ landed in the Descartes region.

After a record 20hrs 14 min three Moonwalks, again with the rover, they returned safely to Thomas Mattingly in the Command Mudule, and then safely back to Earth.

In November the same year, Apollo 12 lifted off taking Alan Bean and Charles Conrad along with their Command Module pilot Richard Gordon back to the Moon. Bean and Conrad landed the Lunar Lander ‘Intrepid’ in the Ocean of Storms, close to the unmanned Surveyor 3 spacecraft that had landed there two years earlier. They made two Moonwalks, a total of 7hrs 45min on the surface, before firing their ascent engine to return to the awaiting Richard Gordon in the Command Module.

The Apollo 13 flight in April 1970, saw James Lovell and Fred Haise miss out on their chance to walk on the Moon, when an explosion in the Service Module of an oxygen tank 22,461 miles from Earth,

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The final Moon landing flight was Apollo 17, with astronauts Eugene Cernan and geologist Harrison Schmitt, along with Ron Evans the Command Module pilot.

They took off on the final Moonlanding mission on 7th December 1972. They landed safely in the Taurus-Littrow area three days later. They made three highly successful Moonwalks totalling 22hrs 5min on the lunar surface. They used the lunar rover again, this time travelling 21 miles. The lunar surface activity ended with a ceremonial speech by Cernan, which marked the last steps of

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men on the Moon during the 20th century. The Lunar Lander, this time nicknames ‘Challenger’ lifted off safely to join the Command Module and then they returned to Earth and a safe splashdown.

I have had the pleasure of meeting 6 of these space heroes, out of the surviving 9. One from each of the Moon Landings.

Buzz Aldrin from Apollo 11, Alan Bean from Apollo 12, Edgar Mitchell from Apollo 14, Dave Scott from Apollo 15, Charlie Duke from Apollo 16 and finally Eugene Cernan from Apollo 17 (The last man on the Moon).

I hope to meet John Young, Harrison Schmitt and Neil Armstrong one day, but as all of these men are now in their 80’s my chances must be small. It is hard to perceive that by 2020 probably none of these Moonwalkers will be left alive. Meeting them is like meeting Royalty, a once in a lifetime experience never to be forgotten. I have been lucky enough to have met several of the early Mercury, Gemini and Apollo Astronauts, as well as many of the early Russian Cosmonauts, but meeting a Moonwalker is ‘Out of this World !

These twelve brave men have seen the Earth as no other man has seen it. When I spoke to Dave Scott a few years ago, I remember him saying that ‘You could blot out all the people back on Earth, by holding your thumb out in front of you’. Three have since died… Jim Irwin in August 1991 of a heart attack, Alan Shepard in July 1998 of Leukaemia, and lastly Charles Conrad in July 1999 in a motorbike accident. So nine men are left to represent Living History. When they too pass on, their tales and adventures will past into the history books..

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The Naming of Craters : Mercury following studies by Giovanni Schiaparelli (in 1881 and 1889) and by the France-based Greek astronomer Eugène Michel Antoniadi (1870-1944) pictured below right (in 1934) was abandoned because of the inaccuracies of their mapping realised after the American Mariner 10 mission. Antoniadi made the first attempts to draw a map of Mercury, but his maps were flawed by his incorrect assumption that Mercury had synchronous rotation with the Sun.

Comparatively little is known about Mercury; ground-based telescopes reveal only an illuminated crescent with limited detail. The first of two spacecraft to visit the planet was Mariner 10, which mapped less than half of the planet’s surface from 1974 to 1975.

The second was the MESSENGER spacecraft, which attained orbit around Mercury on March 17, 2011, and has now begun mapping the rest of the planet.

(Artist’s impression of missions from Wikipedia).

Craters were then named after famous people, (as you’ll see many of whom were famous for their cultural rather than scientific contributions to learning), valleys after radar installations, scarps after famous ships of discovery and ridges after astronomers who had studied the planet.

The nomenclature for topographical features suggested

Johannes Brahms (1833-97) German composer on Monaco 1983 Edgar Degas (18341917) French artist on France 1960 Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) German composer on W. Germany 1985

These panels from Universe ed. Martin Rees (Dorling Kindersley 2005)

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Some Mercury Crater Nominees Celebrated in Stamps Frederic Chopin (1810-49) Polish composer on Romania 1960 Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834) English poet on Malta 1990

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) German composer on E. Germany 1970

Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-75) Italian writer on Italy 1932

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) German polymath on W. Germany 1982

Homer, (c.8th cent BC) Ancient Greek poet on Greece 1983

Gerard Kuiper (1905-73) DutchAmerican astronomer on Nicaragua 1994

Mikhail Lermontov (1814-41) Russian poet and painter on USSR 1956

Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564) Italian artist and engineer on E.Germany (1975)

Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643) Italian composer on Germany 1993

Petrarch (1304-74) Italian scholar and poet on Italy 1974

Alexander Pushkin (1799-1837) Russian author on USSR 1956

Francois Rabelais (1494-1553) French writer and humanist on France 1950

Auguste Renoir (1841-1919) French painter on France 1955

Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640) Flemish painter on Belgium 1977

William Shakespeare (1594—1616) English writer on Gibraltar 1964

Sholem Aleichem (1859-1916) pen-name of Solomon N. Rabinovich, Yiddish Author and playwright on USSR 1959

Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971) Russian born French cum American composer on Monaco 1982

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Table on left taken from Patrick Moore’s Atlas of the Universe (Philips 1999) and map above from Universe ed. Martin Rees (Dorling Kindersley 2005)

August Strindberg (1849 — 1912) Swedish writer on Sweden 1949 Sir Christopher Wren (16321723) English architect and astronomer on GB 2008

Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901) Italian composer on Italy 1951

Bedȑich Smetana (1824-1884) Czech composer on Czechoslovakia 1954, has a crater as big as Stravinsky crater and Strindberg (diam 190 km) in his honour.

Richard Wagner (1813-83) German composer on E. Germany 1963

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Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) Russian writer on USSR 1960

Ivan Turgenev (1818-1883) Russian writer on USSR 1968

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A Brief History of Ozone-Monitoring Satellites and Instruments Garry Toth and Don Hillger The following article receiving its first ever publication has been reviewed by eminent ozone scientist Dr Arlin Krueger who worked for NASA for many years.

Ozone (O3), a molecule composed of three oxygen atoms, is found in trace amounts in the stratosphere, with a maximum concentration at about 25 km. It has an important role in protecting life on Earth by screening out most of the harmful solar ultraviolet (UV) radiation (UV-b and UV-c) before it reaches the surface. The Swiss physicist C. F. Schönbein (1799-1868) (Switzerland Scott 1060, from 1999) isolated the gas in 1840 and named it ozone, from the Greek ozein (to smell), because of its pungent odour. The first groundbased instrument for measuring the total ozone in an atmospheric column was developed by the English physicist G. M. B. Dobson (1889-1976) in 1924. It became known as

the Dobson spectrophotometer (British Antarctic Territory Scott 177, from 1991) and served as the standard instrument for many decades.

The German physicist Erich Regener (1881-1955) (Germany cancel, from 2000) was the first to make in-situ upperlevel measurements. In 1934 he used a stratospheric balloon with instruments that directly measured the UV absorption by ozone.

The first remote sensing techniques to observe ozone were developed in the early 1960s. They measured the ozone-induced absorption in the appropriate UV wavelengths in light that had passed through the atmosphere, and compared the result to measurements in nearby wavelengths not absorbed by ozone.

Greater absorption meant more ozone, but the details were tricky. One method was to fly UV detectors on balloons (H. Paetzold) and rockets (A. Krueger) to measure extinction of sunlight versus altitude. Another was to use the solar occultation technique: at sunrise (or sunset) a satellite-mounted reflector or sensor would sample sunlight that had grazed the Earth’s “limb” (the boundary between its edge and the blackness of space) and so had passed twice through the whole atmospheric column on its way to the detector. Starlight occultation could be used in the same way.

The earliest satellite ozone experiment was passive: no instrument was flown. Instead, visible sunlight in ozone’s Chappuis absorption band that grazed the Earth’s limb was reflected to ground instruments by the communications satellite Echo -1 (1960 launch; e.g. United States Scott 1173, from 1960).

It was nothing more than a large aluminized balloon in space designed to reflect radio waves.

The experiment demonstrated the Earth satellite occultation principle (S. Venkateswaran, J. Moore, and A. Krueger, 1961, in the Journal of Geophysical Research) but failed to produce good results because at the high altitude of the satellite the entire ozone layer was as large as the solar disk.

The first experimental active ozone sensor was flown aboard the USAF satellite SAMOS-9 (1962 launch). Its single-channel UV radiometer used the solar occultation limb technique. Ariel-2 (1964 launch; e.g. Poland Scott 1468, from 1966) did much the same thing, with somewhat different instruments.

With the advent of Earth-orbiting satellites in the late 1950s and 1960s, new possibilities in ozone research opened up. The photochemistry of ozone was poorly understood due to large uncertainties in chemical reaction rate data. In 1977, D. Heath, P. Crutzen, and A. Krueger, in an article in Science, used satellite ozone data to demonstrate that nitric oxide produced in a solar proton Next came a new technique using event catalytically destroyed stratospheric ozone. This opened the backscattered radiation (radiation moving in a direction at least door for the theory that other catalysts, like halogens, could modify 90 degrees different from its initial direction). Backscattered UV ozone.

In the 1970s, Mario (BUV) was the UV component of sunlight that had penetrated Molina (1943-present) (Mexico downward to the lower atmosphere, and even as far the surface, Scott 2060, from 1997) and his before being scattered and reflected back upward. A downwardcolleagues sounded warning bells looking sensor could measure the BUV spectrum which, combined about the damage to ozone that with certain other information including the incident solar UV and they felt was likely being caused the surface reflectance, would provide an ozone profile (i.e. the by manmade chlorofluorocarbons vertical distribution of ozone above a point). The technique was (CFCs). This theory was supported extended in 1967 (J. Dave and C. Mateer, 1967, in the Journal of by the discovery in the mid-1980s by scientists of the British the Atmospheric Sciences) to allow the calculation of total column Antarctic Survey using the Dobson spectrophotometer that ozone as well, and that extension was first used in 1970 on springtime ozone amounts over Antarctica were much lower than Nimbus-4 (see below). they had been a decade previously. Observations from satellites would soon confirm, in dramatic visual fashion, the existence of the The USSR tested the first space-based BUV spectrophotometer so-called Antarctic ozone “hole”. Crutzen, Molina, and F. S. aboard Kosmos-45 (1964 launch). It was an experimental weather Rowland were jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry for their satellite. That BUV sensor was also flown on the experimental work in 1995.

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profiles. The technique had weaknesses, however. IRIS was limited to cloud-free regions with low surface emissivity.

Furthermore, the “contribution function” necessary for the calculations was limited to the upper tropospheric and lower stratospheric regions, so that ozone in the rest of the column was not sensed.

weather satellites Kosmos-65 (1965 launch), Kosmos-92 (1965 launch), and Kosmos-122 (1966 launch). A launch cover from Tartu, Estonia nicely shows Kosmos-122, and Laos Scott 784 (from 1987) shows a Kosmos satellite that is clearly one of this group.

The first US BUV instrument was a single-channel radiometer that looked downward at 30 degrees to the left of nadir. It was flown aboard the USAF satellite OV1-1 (1965 launch).

Similar early American BUV measurements were made by instruments on OV1-10 (1966 launch) and OGO-4 (1967 launch; e.g. Sierra Leone Scott 1069i).

Starlight limb occultation was attempted with a UV telescope and spectrophotometer aboard OAO-2 (1968 launch; e.g. Sharjah Scott 42, from 1964, issued in advance of the launch) and OAO-3 (1972 launch; e.g. Gambia Scott 799, from 1988). In the OAO-3 experiment, β Centauri was the target star. Neither experiment produced credible results. To the authors’ knowledge, starlight occultation was not again used until 2002, with Envisat (see below).

Another advance in ozone remote sensing techniques came with the InfraRed Interferometer Spectrometer (IRIS) that flew on Nimbus-3 (1969 launch; e.g. Zambia Scott 61, from 1970). The IRIS looked downward toward the nadir and measured the thermal emissions of the Earth and atmosphere in certain wavelength bands, including the 9.6 μm ozone absorption band. This type of instrument is known in general as an atmospheric sounder. It provided ozone

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Both a BUV spectrometer and an IRIS were aboard Nimbus-4 (1970 launch).

Many stamps show generic Nimbus satellites (e.g. China-Taiwan Scott 1652, from 1970; Dominica Scott 355, from 1973; and Portugal Scott 1115, from 1970) but none refer specifically to Nimbus-4. However, launch covers are also available, including one with a Sarzin cachet that mentions ozone. The BUV and IRIS sensors were nadir-viewing instruments that functioned as sounders and provided ozone profile information.

The Limb Radiance Inversion Radiometer (LRIR) was an updated IRIS designed for limb scanning. It flew aboard Nimbus-6 (1975 launch).

Nimbus-7 (1978 launch) was one of the most successful remote sensing satellites ever, with 14.5 years of data, until 1993! It carried three ozone-monitoring instruments. The Limb Infrared Monitor of the Stratosphere (LIMS) was a limb scanning sensor designed to provide ozone profiles by measuring IR radiation coming from the limb. LIMS collected data for 9 months until the cryogens were exhausted. The Solar Backscatter Ultraviolet Radiometer (SBUV) was an updated Nimbus-4 BUV instrument.

The Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS) was a new instrument designed to map the spatial distribution of total column ozone. Nimbus-7 carried the first version of this sensor (TOMS-1) which shared some components with the SBUV sensor.

With all this capability, Nimbus-7 was the most advanced ozone monitoring instrument of its time. After the discovery of the Antarctic ozone hole in the mid-1980s, remote-sensing satellites with ozone sensors paid special attention to the South Polar area, and the resulting images were dramatic.

Within a few years, some postage stamps included depictions of the hole (e.g. Chile Scott 974, from 1991; and Cuba Scott 3391, from 1992). The images of total ozone on those stamps were based on information from Nimbus-7 TOMS. The TOMS-1 aboard this satellite provided a long and complete dataset: a daily

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worldwide map of total ozone from 1 November 1978 to 6 May 1993.

Other ozone monitoring satellites were also launched in the 1970s.

AE-5 (AE-E, Explorer-55) (1975 launch) carried the engineering model Nimbus-4 BUV sensor in a low inclination orbit. A launch cover with a Centennial cachet refers to studying “the protective ozone layer” as its mission. AEM-2 (AEM-B, Explorer-60) (1979 launch) carried the first version of a new instrument, the Stratospheric Aerosol and Gas Experiment (SAGE-1). As seen in a launch cover with a Space Voyage cachet, its mission was to “obtain data on aerosols and ozone in the stratosphere”. No stamps are known to show these satellites.

Sounder (HIRS), versions 2 or 3 or 4. This complex instrument includes a channel in the 9.6 μm ozone absorption band and provides observations of ozone and many other atmospheric constituents. In addition, NOAA-9, 11, 13, 14, 16, 17, 18, and 19 carried the SBUV/2, an updated version of Nimbus-7’s SBUV instrument. The NOAA series will be replaced in the coming years by the Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS, formerly known as NPOESS, the National Polar Orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System). Those satellites will carry the Ozone Mapping and Profiler Suite (OMPS), an advanced package with both a nadir viewing BUV sensor and a limb viewing UV/visible sensor that will provide detailed ozone observations.

Two research satellites with ozone capabilities were launched in the 1980s. SME (Explorer-64) (1980 launch) carried solar and BUV spectrometers and an IR radiometer. Its mission was to study ozone in the upper stratosphere and the mesosphere.

This satellite is nicely depicted in Malagasy Scott 1536d (from 2000). A launch cover with a Goddard Space Flight Centre cachet shows the satellite and also summarizes in a few words its ozone mission. The ERBS (Earth Radiation Budget Satellite, 1984 launch from Space Shuttle mission STS-41G) carried SAGE-2, an updated package from the SAGE -1 that was aboard AEM-B. Both SAGE instruments were limb scanners, and measured UV in sunlight at sunrise and sunset. One of the goals of ERBS was to measure ozone loss in the upper stratosphere. No stamps are known to show ERBS, but launch covers exist.

San Marco-D/L (also known as San Marco-5; 1988 launch) was designed to explore the relation between solar activity and phenomena in the ionosphere and thermosphere. It probably did not measure ozone, but a sister satellite, San Marco-D/M, was designed to monitor cloud cover and ozone. Unfortunately, this satellite was cancelled.

Four Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) satellites (DMSP-5D1-F1 through F4) were successfully launched between 1976 and 1979 (the F5 launch failed in 1980). These satellites carried a multichannel filter radiometer known as the Special Sensor “H” (SSH). This instrument was an IR sounder and included a channel in the 9.6 μm ozone absorption band. No stamps are known to show these satellites but launch covers are available.

A long series of NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) polar-orbiting weather satellites carried ozone monitoring instruments, starting with NOAA-6 (1979 launch) and ending with the last in the NOAA series, NOAA-19 (also known as NOAA-N Prime) (2009 launch). Many stamps show generic NOAA satellites (e.g. Malagasy Scott 969, from 1990) but none refer to specific members of the series, except Netherlands Scott B652 (from 1990) which shows a satellite image taken by NOAA-11, but does not depict the satellite itself. All the NOAA satellites carried a sounder known as the High Resolution Infrared Radiation

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The UARS (Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite) was launched by the shuttle STS-48 in 1991. It was the first satellite of NASA’s Mission to Planet Earth series, and carried a wide variety of sensors. The Cryogenic Limb Array Etalon Spectrometer (CLAES) measured vertical profiles of ozone. The Improved Stratospheric and Mesospheric Sounder (ISAMS) in conjunction with the Halogen Occultation Experiment (HALOE) provided information on the formation and destruction of ozone. The Solar UV Spectral Irradiance Monitor (SUSIM) and the Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS) also made ozone measurements. Finally, the Solar Stellar Comparison Experiment (SOLSTICE) measured solar UV radiation with the goal of determining to what degree solar cycles affect stratospheric ozone and in particular the ozone hole.

UARS is nicely depicted in the lower left margin of Central African Republic Scott 663 (a souvenir sheet of 1, from 1984) and in the cachet of

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instrument suite, except for an apparent updated IR sounder (IRFS -2).

a FDC of United Nations Scott 550 (from 1989).

Some Space Shuttle missions also carried ozone sensors. Eight missions starting with STS-34 (in 1989) and ending with STS-72 (in 1996) carried the carried the Shuttle Solar Backscatter UV (SSBUV) radiometer in the Shuttle cargo bay. One of the goals of this instrument was to provide calibration data for the ozone measurements made by NOAA-9, NOAA-11, Nimbus-7, and the UARS. In addition, STS-45 (1992), STS-56 (1993), and STS-66 (1994) carried ATLAS-1, 2, and 3, respectively (Atmospheric Laboratory for Applications and Science). Among other things, the ATLAS package studied the chemical properties of the middle atmosphere with the goal of determining how those factors might affect ozone. Two later shuttle flights carried different instruments. SOLSE/LORE (Shuttle Ozone Limb Sounding Experiment and the Limb Ozone Retrieval Experiment) were carried by STS-87 (1997). These sensors were designed to provide both vertical and horizontal distributions of ozone through solar occultation limb scanning. The updated SOLSE2 was carried by STS-107 in 2003. Its goal was to obtain limb data on ozone in a wide variety of conditions. Unfortunately, STS-107 was lost on re-entry.

The Russian Meteor 3-5 (Meteor-TOMS) (1991 launch), the first joint US-USSR Earth science mission, carried the engineering model Nimbus TOMS instrument (supplied by NASA) to obtain highresolution maps of global total ozone. This mission extended the 14.5 year Nimbus TOMS record of global ozone by three more years while three new TOMS instruments were being built. A more modern Meteor design, Meteor-3M (originally Meteor-3M-1) was launched in 2001. It carried the SAGE-3 instrument, a limb scanner that was an update of the SAGE-2 flown on the ERBS. One of its goals was to study the processes leading to ozone depletion during the boreal winter. Its orbit was such that it could provide the necessary high latitude coverage. Furthermore, in this way it could complement the middle and low latitude coverage previously provided

by SAGE-2 and ERBS. Russia Scott 7140 (from 2009) nicely depicts Meteor-3M. It was originally hoped to launch a companion satellite, Meteor-3M2, with another SAGE-3 instrument, but those plans were shelved and the satellite was cancelled in 1999. Meteor-M1, the first of the new generation of Meteor weather satellites, was launched in 2009.

It is depicted on at least one Russian launch cover. It has several instruments including an imager/sounder identified by the acronym MTVZA, and what is probably the first version of a new IR sounder (IRFS-1). These sensors can measure ozone and many other atmospheric constituents. The next satellite in the series, MeteorM2, is scheduled for a future launch. It should have the same

Also in the 1990s, some ozone monitoring satellites from Europe and other countries began to appear. SPOT-3, a French satellite, was launched in 1993. It measured ozone profiles with a package known as the Polar Ozone and Aerosol Measurement - 2 (POAM2), which used the solar occultation limb scanning technique.

SPOT-4 followed in 1998, with the updated POAM-3. No stamps are known that specifically identify SPOT-3 or SPOT-4.

Many (e.g.

Portugal Madeira Scott 152a, from 1991) show a satellite that can be identified as SPOT-1 or -2 or -3 (they were all very similar). SPOT-4 and SPOT-5 had an updated design, and again it is impossible to differentiate between them on stamps.

France Scott 3358 (from 2007) is an example of a stamp that depicts either SPOT4 or SPOT-5. Some launch covers are also available for these satellites.

ERS-2 (Environmental Remote Sensing - 2, 1995 launch) was the first ESA (European Space Agency) satellite to carry ozone measuring equipment. Known as the Global Ozone Monitoring Experiment - 1 (GOME-1), this instrument used the BUV technique and differential optical absorption spectroscopy to provide continuous measurements of global ozone profiles and total column ozone. Quite a few stamps show ERS-1 but none are known that specifically refer to ERS-2. Launch covers and other cachet covers for ERS-2 are available.

TechSat-1A, a microsatellite from Israel, failed to reach orbit in 1995. It carried the Ozone Meter - 2 (OM-2) SBUV radiometer.

The replacement satellite, TechSat-1B, was launched in 1998 with the same instrument. There exist at least two launch covers for TechSat-1B which nicely depict the satellite.

A Chilean microsatellite, FASat-Alfa, was launched from Russia in 1995 but was lost in space when it failed to separate from the main payload. It carried the Ozone Layer Monitoring Experiment (OLME) and was designed to monitor the destruction of ozone above Chile. FASat-Bravo, the replacement satellite with the same payload, was successfully launched in 1998.

TOMS-EP (Earth Probe) (with the TOMS-3 instrument) and the Japanese ADEOS-1 (Advanced Earth Observing Satellite), with the TOMS-4 and the limb sounder ILAS (Improved Limb Atmospheric Spectrometer), both launched in 1996, were designed to continue the global ozone mapping of Nimbus-7 and Meteor-3-5. TOMS-EP was originally intended to follow Meteor-3-5 in 1994 but was delayed by rocket problems until 1996. This resulted in an 18 month gap in global total ozone coverage. The orbits of TOMS-EP and ADEOS-1 were arranged for complementary coverage, but ADEOS-1 failed prematurely, so the TOMS-EP orbital altitude was increased to enlarge the coverage area. No stamps are known to show TOMS-EP, but a few (e.g. Japan Scott 2134, from 1992) depict ADEOS-1. The satellite QuikTOMS, with the TOMS-5 instrument, was to replace missing TOMS coverage due to the failure of ADEOS-1 and

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the cancellation of Meteor-3M-2. Its mission was to monitor global ozone levels with emphasis on the Arctic and Antarctic.

Unfortunately, the launch (in 2001) on a Taurus rocket failed.

ADEOS-2 (2002 launch) did not carry a TOMS instrument, but did carry an updated ILAS known as ILAS-2.

MSX (Midcourse Space Experiment, launched in 1996) was a satellite with multiple goals including the observation of ozone. It carried the UVISI (Ultraviolet and Visible Imager and Spectrographic Imager). This was apparently a limb sounding instrument. No covers or stamps for it are known.

STEP-4 (Space Test Experimental Program 4, launched in 1997) was a Department of Defense satellite with instruments including the OOAM (Orbiting Ozone and Aerosol Measurement). Unfortunately, its solar panels failed to deploy and contact was lost. No stamps or covers are known for this satellite.

Odin (2001 launch) was a Swedish satellite that carried the Canadian Space Agency’s OSIRIS instrument (Optical Spectrograph and InfraRed Imager System). This instrument was designed to measure ozone distribution in the mesosphere.

A second instrument, the SMR (Submm Radiometer) measured ozone and other gases in the stratosphere.

Odin is depicted in Guinea Republic Michel 5840 (from 2008).

Envisat (2001 launch) was a large, complex European Earthobservation satellite with instruments to measure the properties of land, ocean, ice, and the atmosphere. For ozone work, it carried the Global Ozone Monitoring by Occultation of Stars (GOMOS) instrument which was designed to produce highresolution ozone profiles and accurate estimates of how ozone changes in time.

Such detailed observations are necessary for an understanding of ozone chemistry and also for the validation of ozone models. Envisat appears on a few stamps, including Mali Scott 847c (from 1996).

SORCE (the Solar Radiation and Climate Experiment satellite, launched in 2003) was a NASA mission designed to study various aspects of the climate as well as ozone and UV-b radiation. It was the second satellite to carry the SOLSTICE instrument (UARS was the first). The goal of this instrument was to provide insight into the question of how solar cycles affect stratospheric ozone and the ozone hole and to provide a dataset that would merge into that of UARS and carry on into the future. No stamps are known to show SORCE, but launch covers with nice depictions exist.

With respect to ozone, the goal of this mission was to continue the observations made by the UARS and the various satellites that carried the TOMS instrument. Aura carried several instruments used in ozone monitoring. The Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) used the downward-looking SBUV technique to provide global total column ozone amounts, as did the earlier TOMS sensors, but at a higher resolution. The High Resolution Dynamics Limb Sounder (HIRDLS) and the Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS) were limb-scanning sounders designed to produce high-resolution profiles of ozone and other atmospheric gases.

The Tropospheric Emission Spectrometer (TES) was both a limb and a nadir spectrometer that, in conjunction with the OMI, produced tropospheric ozone profiles and data on ozone production and transport in that atmospheric layer. EOS-Aura, along with some other members of the A-train, is depicted in Sierra Leone Scott 2871d (from 2006) and Tanzania Scott 2444 (a souvenir sheet of 1, from 2007).

MetOp-A (2006 launch) was the first European operational polarorbiting weather satellite. For ozone measurements, it carried an update of the GOME-1 instrument that flew aboard ERS-2. GOME2 in MetOp-A was a BUV spectrometer that used differential optical absorption spectroscopy to provide global total ozone data. The satellite also carried HIRS/4 – the same instrument found in many of the recent NOAA satellites. It is a sounder with a channel in the 9.6 μm ozone absorption band that provides profiles of ozone as well as many other atmospheric constituents.

MetOp-A is nicely depicted in the upper-right margin of a sheet of 6 stamps (Michel 5873-5878, from 2008) issued by the Republic of Guinea. MetOp-B and MetOp-C, with the same instrumentation, are scheduled for launch in the coming years.

SciSat (2003 launch) was a Canadian satellite with the Atmospheric Chemistry Experiment – Fourier Transform Spectrometer (ACE-FTS).

It made detailed observations of various upper atmospheric chemicals with the goal of improving the understanding of chemical and dynamical processes that cause the destruction and creation of stratospheric ozone, with particular emphasis on the high northern latitudes including Canada and the polar region. Launch covers are available.

EOS-Aura (2004 launch, formerly known as EOS-Chem) is a member of the Earth Observing System constellation of satellites known as the “A-train”. Its multiple sensors were for climate, air quality, and ozone observations in the troposphere as well as the stratosphere.

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The only Chinese satellites known to carry ozone-measuring instruments are the FY-3 series of polar orbiters. FY-3A (2008 launch) and FY-3B (2010 launch) carried the TOM (Total Ozone Mapper, also referred to as the TOU, Total Ozone Unit), a six channel spectrometer similar to the earlier TOMS instruments, and the SBUS (Solar Backscattering UV Sounder), an ozone profiler that uses the SBUV technique. FY-3C, yet to be launched, is expected to carry the same instruments. No stamps are known to show the FY-3 satellites, but launch covers are available.

The Japanese Greenhouse Gases Observing Satellite (GOSAT, formerly called GCOM-A1 or ADEOS-3) was launched in January 2009. The Ozone Dynamics UV Spectrometer (ODUS) was originally planned for this satellite, but was not used. Instead, GOSAT carries the TANSO-FTS (Thermal and Near-IR Sensor for Carbon Observation – Fourier Transform Spectrometer). This instrument is similar to the ozone-monitoring ACE-FTS carried by SciSat. However, the main goal of the mission was to make detailed observations of the principal greenhouse gases.

The French microsatellite Picard (2010 launch) was designed to make solar measurements and help determine the effect of solar forcing on the Earth's climate, but also carried the PREMOS (PRecision Monitor for OScillation measurement), a set of three photometers that measured solar spectral irradiance in five channels: one visible, two IR, and two in the UV in wavelengths useful for ozone photochemistry. The goal of this limb scanner was to study ozone formation and destruction. Launch covers are available.

In the not-too-distant future, the JPSS series of polar-orbiting weather satellites, along with Meteor-M2, FY-3C, MetOp-B, and MetOp-C (mentioned above) will carry ozone instruments.

Other future satellites will also carry ozone monitoring equipment.

The Citizen Explorer Satellite CX-1 is a microsatellite developed in Colorado with the goal of producing a global environmental science database. It carries a spectrophotometer that will measure UV-b radiation and a photometer to measure surface reflectance. These instruments will provide data about stratospheric ozone. The mission concept is that those data would be sent directly to schools, where the students themselves would learn how to do the analysis.

CX-1 is still waiting for a launch slot.

they become operational.

Some readers may be interested to note that at least three satellites that were sent to Mars carried ozone-measuring instruments, but they are outside the purview of this article.

Readers who are interested in the satellites mentioned in this article (or many others) in a philatelic context are invited to consult the authors’ Un-manned Satellite Philately website at http://rammb.cira.colostate.edu/dev/hillger/satellites.htm.

Summary tables of the ozone satellites and instruments discussed in this article are part of that website and can be found at http:// rammb.cira.colostate.edu/dev/hillger/ozone-monitoring.htm. A page devoted to ozone-related stamps in general is available at http://rammb.cira.colostate.edu/dev/hillger/ozone.htm which is part of the authors’ Weather and Climate Philately website at http://rammb.cira.colostate.edu/dev/hillger/weather.htm.

Acknowledgements The authors would like to thank Dr. Arlin Krueger for a technical review of this article.

References Krueger, A.J., B. Guenther, A.J. Fleig, D.F. Heath, E. Hilsenrath, R. McPeters, and C. Prabhakara, 1980: Satellite ozone measurements, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, Series A, Mathematical and Physical Sciences, 296(1418), 191-204.

Toth, G., and D. Hillger, 2003: Scientific satellites for monitoring atmospheric ozone, Astrophile, 48(5), (September/October), 207211.

Toth, G., and D. Hillger, 2004: Healing the "hole", Topical Time, 55 (2), (March/April), 23-27.

Biographical Sketches

The Deep Space Climate Observatory DSCOVR (proposed by Al Gore in 1998, developed under the name Triana, and then mothballed) has apparently gained a new lease on life. It was originally designed with a full suite of climate-observing instruments that would observe the Earth while parked at the Lagrange L1 point. Part of the initial design included ozone and UV sensors. Recent development of the satellite apparently emphasizes space environment sensors, and there has been argument about whether or not the climate package, which is already built, should even be included. It is uncertain whether or not DISCOVR will be launched, and if so whether or not it will include the climate package. If it passes all those hurdles, it should be able to provide a unique climate dataset which will include information on ozone.

The Meteosat Third Generation (MTG) satellites (four in total), tentatively planned for the 2016 to 2030 timeframe, will include a variety of advanced instrumentation including an InfraRed Sounder (IRS) capable of measuring ozone along with many other atmospheric constituents. Finally, two MTG sounding mission satellites (MTG-S) are tentatively planned for the 2018 to 2026 timeframe. They will carry the IRS and the UVN (UV Visible and Near -IR sounder) for various atmospheric measurements including ozone.

These MTG satellites will be renamed with a ‘Meteosat’ name when

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Garry Toth, (right) MSc, is a research meteorologist with Environment Canada at the Prairie and Arctic Storm Prediction Centre in Edmonton, Alberta.

Send correspondence to garry_toth@hotmail.com.

Don Hillger, PhD, is a research meteorologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and holds a cooperative position at Colorado State University, in Fort Collins CO. Send correspondence to hillger@cira.colostate.edu

A selection of covers related to this article appear in full colour on the back page of this issue

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From top André in “torture chair”, then not having an easy lie in with head down and feet up.

The Modern Flying Dutchman

By Bert van Eijck On November 30th, 2011 Dutch astronaut André Kuipers (53) is scheduled to be launched in a Russian Soyuz ferry from space base Baikonur in Kazakhstan to the International Space Station, circling 400 kilometers above Earth. He will stay and work there for six months as a Modern Flying Dutchman.

André with Bert (centre) and Henk Nieuwenhuis, curator of Eise Eisinga Planetarium in Frankener at ESTEC in the 90’s Astronaut André at KSC with shuttle in background, though he did not fly on one.

It is the second time this astronaut-physician will fly to the Heavens. In April 2004 he made his maiden-spaceflight, again from Baikonur for an eleven-day journey, while Louis Armstrong on record sang his famous song “What a Wonderful World.

At the age of twelve André devoured the science fiction stories of Perry Rhodan, the hero-astronaut from Earth discovering strange planets in our Solar System and beyond. There were always medical problems to be solved so young Andre’ decided then to be a doctor. And so he did.

It was not easy to become an astronaut, especially after 1985 when Wubbo Ockels, the first Dutch space traveller, spent a week on board the space shuttle Challenger. Other nationalities in Europe then got priority in the ESA programme. Thousands of young men and women in Europe applied for ESA astronaut jobs in 1991/1992 and André hoped to be amongst the lucky ones. He made it to the last 25, but was not included in the final six who were picked.

Of course André was disappointed but he never lost confidence in his dream. So, when the opportunity came in 1993 to travel with a company of journalists and space-enthusiasts to the USSR visiting ‘space places’ Andre’ was with them. There I met our second Dutch astronaut-to be for the first time.

“Who dares?” Doctor of Medicine Yuri Voronkov, Head of the Cosmonaut Selection Department of IMBP (Institute of Medical and Biological Problems) in Moscow asks. He stands in the doorway of a small chamber and points to a steel chair in the middle. The visitors are silent and waiting. Then a 30-year almost bald man steps forward. Self-confident. Stout. With an air of “I will show you!”

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No nerves show in the face of the sturdy Dutchman as he sits down on the chair. He knows what to expect as do we as Dr. Voronkov has told us before his invitation “Who dares?” The harmless looking chair is in fact a ‘torture chair’.

The rotation begins: higher, lower, forward, backwards and… faster. To disorient the victim there is at the same time a projection of lines on the wall. Andre’ Kuipers passes the test;:even Dr. Voronkov is surprised.

Another challenge waits for André : to lie on a bed with this face down and his feet up with all the blood in the body going to his head, changing to rose-red. The Russian chiefspace doctor is not surprised anymore when he is told André Kuipers did this sort of experiment before at ESTEC, the European Space Research and Technology Centre, in Noordwijk in the Netherlands.

About 500 doctors, nurses and technicians were at that time working at IMBP in order to assure the well-being of cosmonauts. Of course the candidates have to be healthy in body and mind. That will be examined at the Institute in Moscow with a lot of tests.

Envelope depicting symbol of Gagarin Centre (left) with stamp training for joint Soviet-Syrian spaceflight plus special cancel Star City and Registered Mail.

And what about André Kuipers after 1993? Well, he became a doctor at ESTEC, passed all the tests for astronaut and – at last – became one.

First he trained at the ESA-centre in Cologne, Germany for his first spaceflight in 2004. Later on he spent more than half a year at the Yuri Gagarin Training Centre for astro-/ cosmo-nauts in Star City, near Moscow. This was a hard time, not only because of the physical training and all the technical stuff but he also had to study the difficult Russian language with its Cyrillic alphabet.

Three 1980 Soviet stamps marking 20 years of the Yuri Gagarin Training Centre for Cosmonauts in Star City, (Zvezdny Gorodok) near Moscow

Now he is ready to return to the Cosmos. Because ISS is completed now, there is a lot of work to do in the space laboratories on board particularly after the Japanese and European modules which docked in recent years.

The ASSS and Orbit wish André Kuipers a Lot of Success in Space!

Mercury First Day Covers The story continues Bruce Cranford, Director SU 1760 The 4 ¢ Project Mercury Stamp (Scott 1193), First Day Covers (FDC) were cancelled at Cape Canaveral, Florida, on February 20, 1962, after John Glenn’s successful launch, orbit and recovery. The covers were made available, that same day, to the public. The USPS announced that by June 9, 1962, approximately 3 million FDC’s were sold. As of July 4, 1983, the USPS still had 300,000 FDC’s in storage. An excellent article by Douglas Kelsey— see References—is available that goes into more detail about the Project Mercury Stamp FDC. After the FDC’s were made available to the public, the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum (NASM) received more than 105 boxes, totaling more than 51,000 FDC’s (see Figure 1). Starting about 1999, the NASM gave FDC’s free to visitors at the Smithsonian’s NASM’s Paul E. Garber Preservation, Restoration, and Storage Facility at Silver Hill, MD. In 2003, the Garber facility was closed to the public and the remaining FDC’s, in 2004, were sent to the

NASM’s National Mall Facility and the newly opened Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center near Washington Dulles International Airport. From about 2004 to about 2007, the NASM gave the FDC’s free to the visitors until all 51,000+ covers were gone.

References: Kelsey, Douglas, “The Day That Astronaut John Glenn and the U.S. Postal Department Shook the World,” American Philatelist, February 2002, http://www.stamps.org/AP/Feature0308.pdf

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Ancient & Modern How mythological allusion has inspired naming conventions within our fields of interest:

4: Space Probes, Projects and Programmes continued

Isis was a Canadian earth magnetosphere satellite, launched twice in January 1969. (Isis 1) and April 1971 (Isis 2). Isis took Ionospheric measurements and its data were correlated with measurements from Alouette 1.

Isis (Algeria 1952, showing a statue of her at Cherchel) was a goddess in Ancient Egyptian religious beliefs, whose worship spread throughout the Classical world. She was worshipped as the ideal mother and wife as well as the matron of nature and magic.

Jason was an American sounding rocket. The five-stage Jason rocket was developed by the US Air Force for monitoring of radiation in near-earth space (700-800 km) Icarus is an American sounding rocket first flown in March after high altitude nuclear explosions. Originally known as 2007. the Argo E-5, it consisted of an Honest John plus Nike plus Nike plus Recruit plus T-55. First used in 1958.

Ikar was a Ukrainian intercontinental ballistic missile. Ikar was Yuzhnoye's design for a heavy ICBM, a next-generation The story of Jason and the replacement for the R-36M2. Design was begun at the Argonauts set on a quest to find beginning of the 1990's under Stanislav Us. It may have used the Golden Fleece is amongst the all-solid propellants, and nested rocket stages. Work was most famous of Greek myth quickly dropped after the dissolution of the Soviet Union and narratives. On Greece 1995 Jason the project cancelled in 1991. presents his trophy to King Pelias

I –J

who had deprived him of his right Ikaros is Solar sail test vehicle, launched on 20.5.10. Released to the throne. in solar orbit 0.72 AU x 1.07 AU x 2.0 deg. Deployed sail by 11 June, and acceleration due to the pressure of the light from Jericho was the name given to the the sun was as expected.

First Israeli ballistic missile.

Developed by Dassualt in France as In Greek mythology Icarus was the son of inventor Daedalus, the MD-620. Test series included both of whom were imprisoned by King Minos of Crete for both one and two stage prototypes. helping Theseus to kill the minotaur and to escape with his Follow-on versions were said to have daughter Ariadne. The only possible escape because of the differed. The first test of a singleking’s land and sea patrols was by flight so Daedalus built stage version of the missile took wings for himself and son fastening place on 1 February 1 1965 from Ile components with wax and string. The du Levant. youth was warned to fly only at medium height but became exhilarated by the In the Bible Jericho was the place to experience, flew too high, whereupon which the Israelites returned from the sun melted the wax and fell into bondage in Egypt led by Joshua, Moses’ successor who water and was drowned. The sea he fell famously made its walls collapse. (Israel 1982). into has been known as the Icarian Sea ever since. (Belgium 1944 shows the Juno II was an American orbital launch vehicle of the late father giving the advice which was soon 1950’s. Satellite launcher derived from Jupiter IRBM. Basic 4 to be ignored). stage vehicle consisted of 1 x Jupiter + 1 x Cluster stage 2 + 1 x Cluster stage 3 + 1 x RTV Motor. Juno V was American Iris is a sounding rocket developed by orbital launch vehicle. By 1958 the Super-Jupiter was called the US Navy in the late 1950’s / early Juno V and the 4 E-1 engines were abandoned in favour of 60’s then handed over to NASA. It was clustering 8 Jupiter IRBM engines below existing Redstone/ flown only four times, but then used in Jupiter tankage. unique Hydra-Iris test series.

Juno was the Roman name for the Iris (France 1946) is the Greek goddess of Greek goddess Hera, (Greece 1986) the rainbow and the messenger of the wife of Zeus but a very vengeful female gods to mankind, so like Hermes she is deity following her brother/husband’s usually portrayed carrying a staff. serial philandering.

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To be continued, starting with Jupiter

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Continued and on page 22

Full colour images of these and other new issues can be viewed at the ATA-SU website http://www.space-unit.com/stamps/2011/

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How Romania Has Celebrated Spaceflight Part Three (Part Two in our June edition covered issues from 1973—2001) Most of the space stamps issued in the last decade have been celebrations of the 1981 flight by Romanian cosmonaut Prunariu in Soyuz 40 and/or have been designed by Alec Bartos who is a well known member of our Society and a prolific artist and stamp designer. If you have Facebook you can see all Alec’s designs there under his Photos in full colour.

In May 2006 to mark the 25th anniversary of Prunariu’s flight Romania produced an overprint of the ESPAMER 1996 issue, shown here on cover with special cancel and a couple of items of postal stationery with imprinted stamps. Alec Bartos designed the cancel on the one below signed by the prime and back up crews.

items above. The stamp, shown on maxim card is SG 6839 and the accompanying MS—6840.

Alec then produced the cachet design and cancel for the 26th anniversary of Soyuz 40 on 14.5.07 illustrated below.

Alec’s next big commission was to design a Space Exploration series (issued on 22.2.08) marking events in 1958, covering the flights of the American Gordo chimpanzee on Jupiter AM 13, a suborbital biological test flight on 13.12.58, Sputnik 3 (15.5.58) and America’s first orbiting satellite Explorer launched on 31.1.58.

Alec also designed maxim cards for each of the three stamps as shown on page 24.

The following year marked the fiftieth anniversary of the launch of Sputnik for which Alec produced the philatelic 23

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In 2009 Alec was naturally chosen to design the Romania tribute to the Fortieth Anniversary of Apollo XI’s landing on the Moon which he did with the above unusual mini-sheet which was presented in various formats‌..

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Romania postal stationery items by Alec Bartos.

And who else of course designed the much sought after Romanian tributes to Yuri Gagarin and Prunariu in 2011 ?

Below right signed by the veteran cosmonaut who wrote about his flight in Philatelica.Ro and Spaceflight maga zines earlier this year

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US Space Cover Collector’s Handbook Review by Jim Reichman As they say, “a picture is worth a thousand words.” If true, then this new book by Ray Cartier is well past the million-word mark. Those who buy it will find that the book is filled with colorful (if you buy the CD version) pictures of US space covers interspersed with a cornucopia of details, facts, hints, and lots of good advice about collecting and exhibiting the covers seen in those images.

If you are like me, you’ve probably dog-eared a few articles in your favorite space journals that gave valuable advice on collecting and exhibiting space covers but now you can’t ever seem to find them when you need them. From that standpoint you’ll probably want to have this book because it contains copies of some of those articles, and, if not those articles themselves, then summary information about US space covers either written and/or verified by the astrophilatelists who wrote those original articles.

Unfortunately, this book’s structure and writing style detract from all of the good information it contains. For example, the first four pages of text a reader encounters (right after the Table of Contents) is a meteor shower of grievances against Federation Internationale de Philatelie (FIP) exhibiting regulations and the judges who implement those rules. It’s like accidentally walking in on the gun fight at the OK Corral in Tombstone, Arizona just in time to see the good guys in white hats (i.e., senior US astrophilatelists) firing a volley of shots off at the miscreants in black hats (i.e., the FIP officials) but never seeing what happened or if any return shots were made. Periodically embedded in the rest of the book’s text are additional shots at those black-hat FIP officials or perhaps these are just echoes of that original volley. In any case, there is never any hint of the FIP’s response.

This approach to introducing a handbook supposedly tailored for all collector skill levels is, in my opinion, a mistake. Whereas I can see all of the experienced and battle-tested astrophilatelists nodding their heads in agreement with Ray’s assessment of the FIP regulation and exhibit-judging situation, any novice collector who buys and begins to read this handbook will probably be taken aback and wondering what he’s gotten himself into. He might also wonder if he should ever try to exhibit his covers. After all, he’s told right up front that no US judges “… list Astrophilately as an area of their knowledge” which would be needed to fairly evaluate his space exhibit.

Even more experienced space collectors might be disheartened if they happen to read (in this book’s biography section) the admission made by one of the expert US astrophilatelists helping to write this book that he personally “… stopped exhibiting due to a lack of knowledgeable US judges.”

If those negative, introductory statements don’t discourage novice collectors then the eventual realization that this handbook is not general enough to include all types of US-space-cover collecting may eventually do so anyway. Although the handbook’s title implies that it is for all “US Space Cover Collectors”, it is, in actuality, narrowly focused on the very strict tenets of a subcategory of space-cover collecting called “Astrophilately”.

Astrophilately (with the underline) is different from the more general, less-stifling form of Astrophilately (without the underline) because it de-values many collectible space covers that don’t meet its exclusionist precepts.

more likely to have, or be able to afford to buy in the initial stages of their collecting experience, are given a rarity category of 1 which are the easiest to obtain and lowest in value. Part of this handbook’s definition of Category 1 space covers is that “… you don’t want them..” and, if you do happen to have some “… you don’t know how to get rid of them.” Category 2 is similarly defined in negative terms that may get a wink and a nod from the super astrophilatelists but are unnecessarily disparaging for the novice collector. To further reinforce these negative collectibility assessments, the handbook states that these Category 1 and 2 covers will “… usually not be listed herein.”

Such negatively-phrased rarity definitions must be equally perplexing for the exhibition judges for whom this handbook was also supposedly written. Judges might be further confused by the fact that this handbook presents two different rarity schemes, one called “Difficulty-of-Acquisition” (D-of-A) and the other “Scarcity” without any rationale as to how to reconcile the differences. The author clearly favors the D-of-A scheme and has, much to the benefit of collectors and judges alike, included such a rating for many of the space covers illustrated in the handbook.

If those problems were not bad enough, readers will also have to look beyond and ignore a lot of other editorial and documentstructure issues to get to all the better materials Ray has put into this book. One of these issues is the fact that the CD version of the book is broken down into 3 randomly sized files (first 43 pages in one file, next 16 pages in another, and the final 140 pages in the last). This means, for example, if you want to do a word search to look for all the references to “Beck” covers, you’d have to do three separate searches, i.e., one in each of the 3 files.

Another distracting issue is that almost all of the images are small making it hard to see any details. This situation is unfortunate but an understandable necessity in order to get as many cover images as possible. The author’s goal appears to be to highlight the envelope cachets which don’t need as much detail to be recognizable. Most collectors will probably be glad to sacrifice some detail for the chance to see more of these space cover samples.

To alleviate this problem, those who own the CD book version can use the zoom feature in the Microsoft Word software or perhaps grab one of the corner handles on the image and stretch it to a larger size to see more detail in these images. Using the zoom feature also works on the tiny font used in some places of this handbook like that found in the example exhibit-synopsis pages. Unfortunately, if you have the printed-book version, those enlarging processes aren’t available so readers will have to use a magnifying glass to read what is printed there.

In fairness, these issues have to be balanced out with the fact that the handbook is peppered throughout with valuable tidbits of helpful exhibiting hints along side of hundreds of cover images many with rarity assessments and estimated values. Most of the space programs have event descriptions and background information while a few even have timelines showing mission names, event dates, and event locations where the space covers should have been postmarked at. The bottom-line assessment of Younger collectors may be further discouraged when they start this handbook is mixed and the value of this handbook will vary reading the rarity descriptions in the “collecting basics” section of from collector to collector depending on what your collecting this handbook. In that section, the space covers that novices are26 interests are.

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New Member Disappointed by Somali Space Stamps

Ukraine Honours Beregovoi

I have just obtained a new issue of stamps from Somaliland, wrote Jon Brown in a note to your Editor in late June 2011. The stamps are in five sheetlets of four, dated 2011 and are titled "The History of Space USSR." Each sheet has two stamps featuring photographs of cosmonauts (some of which appear to have been autographed on the original photographs) and two photographs related to an aspect of one of their missions. The combinations of cosmonauts is interesting. I can understand Gagarin with Tereshkova but Titov (G) with Leonov, Bykovsky with Gorbatko and Serebrov with Viktorenko have less obvious connections. However, the fifth Nikolayev with Popovitch make perfect sense - so its a shame that Nikolayev's photograph is captioned "G S Titov"!

Its bad enough that to continue to add to our collections some of us buy stamps from countries that do not exist but when they are sloppily produced I do wonder if I should bother in future. Or is spotting such errors part of the fun of collecting!

(Editor’s comment: Yes, I think it is !)

Whether you’re a liberal astrophilatelist like myself or a die-hard astrophilatelist, both of us want the exhibits of our prized space covers to be judged fairly. We can all applaud the efforts of the Space Unit committee who are trying to get the exhibiting regulations changed to reflect the realities of the US space cover situation. However, the use of a handbook as the forum to document this squabble with the FIP is questionable especially since the book does not include any rebuttal that the FIP might have wanted to offer. Since this book is already published, this one-sided account is now frozen in time for all who purchase this version of the handbook to live and relive this first great volley shot from the American side of the Atlantic.

Hopefully, the FIP response will be positive and/or reasonable and we can all look forward to Ray’s updated version of this handbook that will reflect those revised exhibiting regulations. Perhaps also, that next handbook will even provide guidance for all of the US spaceflight astrophilatelists who want to collect and exhibit their space covers non-astrophilatelically.

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50th anniversary of the first man in space. 90th anniversary of the birth of Ukrainian cosmonaut Georgy Beregovoi (1921-1995).

Private German Issues Collectable ?

The two stamps below left purchased through Jurgen Esders (JPEsders@web.de) are from different privately operated mailing companies. The Biber Post stamp marks the flight of Soyuz TMA-18 in April of last year and the Neubrandenburg issue shows a most unusual view of Gagarin, being ejected from his descending craft to land by parachute—very original !!

New Constellation Series from Japan Haruki Ikuro draws your attention to this new series whose first issue occurred in July 2011. Illustrations are from publicity material but see one showing full size bottom right. The colours are beautiful deep blue with gold and silver detail.

Location The location of the Earth sites is identified by geographic coordinates and is shown in figure 1 (opposite). Detailed information about the location is provided in the bibliography. The locations fall into a number of categories; Fixed, transportable, mobile. The majority of launch sites are fixed, and capable of using several launch vehicles

Spacecraft Launch Sites : 1 Known to exist in the Solar System

By Bruce Cranford

Fixed (F); A launch site that does not move, e.g., Tanegashima, Jiuquan

Introduction Since 1957, thirty-four spacecraft launch sites have been identified throughout the solar system. Twenty-four of these launch sites exist on Earth, eight on the Moon. This is quite an amazing feat in 53 years. The question arises, what is a launch site? For the purpose of this article, it is a geographic area controlled by a country or other entity, where spacecraft are launched into orbits or beyond.

The launch site may have one or more launch platforms. Table 1 (right) identifies the spacecraft launch sites on Earth and the moon as of 2011. During the next 20 years, additional launch sites will be added to those already on Earth, the Moon, asteroids and hopefully, Mars. Some of the launch sites are growing in capability, others have been or will be decommissioned, or abandoned

Transportable (T): a launch site that is moved to the same spot for launching spacecraft, e.g., Sea Launch which is positioned in the Pacific Ocean at the same spot for each launch. Between launches, the launch platform is moved to California.

Mobile (M): a launch site that changes location for different launches. With the introduction of air launch and submarine launch capabilities, many locations around the Earth become capable of launching spacecraft into space. E.g., Russian submarines have launched spacecraft into orbit from the Barents Sea. The criteria used to establish the location of launch sites are varied and often contradictory. The major criteria are:

Spacecraft Launch Sites The complete history of each launch site is far beyond the intent of this article, and would also require a major encyclopedia to contain the information. Each launch site is full of amazing stories, anecdotes, successes, failures, and tragedies, sufficient to fill many books. A brief summary of each launch site will be given in table 4 which will provide the common name, location, the date when it was established, the identification of the first spacecraft launched from that location, and other names used to identify the launch site.

The following is a brief description of the table 4 headings.

Secure: many launch sites started as military installations requiring a secure (e.g., secret, spy proof) location at which to conduct programmes unknown to the public or other countries.

Remote: because of the hazardous rocket launches, remote locations reduced collateral damage caused by rocket launches, debris crashing into earth, malfunctions, explosions and fire.

Many sites around the world have been or are used to test and launch many types of launch vehicles including rockets and missiles.

The only ones discussed are those used to place spacecraft into orbit or launch spacecraft to another planet or moon. Many launch sites are capable or using one or more types of launch vehicles. These sites also include the infrastructure to assemble, test, and support the operations of the launch.

Additional sites are being built to launch space craft into orbit and these will be added after successfully launching a spacecraft into orbit.

Range: spacecraft launch vehicles typically use multistage rockets that travel specific paths when launched. A range is established in order to track the vehicles during a launch.

The range provides places for the stages to fall to Earth causing little or no damage to the surroundings (in theory). These surroundings are also used to allow malfunctioning launch vehicles to crash into uninhabited areas causing little or not damage.

Weather: a mild climate is preferred which allows more launches during the year.

Inclement or cold weather greatly reduces the number of launches due to the increased workload and difficult work environment. (Continued on page 30)

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Launch covers from above left and clockwise: Cape Canaveral, China’s Jiuquan, Woomera and Kazakhstan’s Baikonur (Tyuratam)

A version of this article was published in The Astrophile for Jan-Apr 2010 (published June 2011), from which some of the tables are copied because of their neat formatting !

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Infrastructure: launch vehicles require power and resources in order to function. The infrastructure resources are essential at a launch site. Some of these infrastructure requirements include manufacturing propellant, controlled environments, assemble and launch facilities, living environments and amenities for the workers.

Transportation: all launch sites require resources, launch vehicles, and payloads to be delivered to the launch site.

They require roads, air ports, water access, and rail.

Orbits: because of the geographic location, launch sites have preferred orbits. For additional information, see the section on orbits.

Time Zone Because of the physical location of the launch sites, reported launch times are relative to the local time zone. The official times of the launches are based upon Universal Time Coordinated (UTC). The time format is year/month/day. The UTC time may affect the reported date of an event. Russia often uses’ DMV (Moscow standard time) for launch times.

As an example, If a spacecraft is launched a Vandenberg AFB, U.S., local time is 10:00 P.M. (2200 hours, Pacific Standard Time) on January 29 (1/29), the reported spacecraft launch date UTC will be 0600 hours, January 30 (1/30). More information about time zones can be found in the bibliography.

Established Sites may have been established for other purposes and converted to spacecraft launch Sites. The date listed in table 4 is the date the earliest known Site was established.

First Launch The first launch date is the date of the first successful launch of a spacecraft into orbit at that launch site. Also, identified is the popular name for the spacecraft.

Manned Space Flight Only a few sites are capable of launching a human into orbit.

The date of the first successful human orbital flight from the site is provided, with the name of the vehicle. Identified below are the past and current major manned spaceflight programmes throughout the world. During the next 20 years, additional manned spaceflight programs will be started, and some of the current one will be retired. A detailed description of all the manned space programs is beyond the scope of this article.

Launch Vehicles Launch vehicles are also known as boosters, rockets, missiles, aircraft, submarines, ships. For the purpose of this article they will be referred to as launch vehicles. A launch vehicle is a vehicle capable of placing a spacecraft into space.

The launch vehicle can contain one or more stages which fall away, jettisoned or are ejected when no longer needed {27}. A

launch vehicle may include an aircraft, submarine, or other vehicle as the zero or first stage. The nomenclature varies between launch vehicles and countries. Most launch vehicles started existence as an intermediate range ballistic missile, intercontinental ballistic missiles, or submarine launch ballistic missiles. A few launch vehicles were designed and built as spacecraft launch vehicles, e.g., Ariane, Pegasus, Saturn, Scout. A detailed description of each launch vehicle is beyond the scope of this article. For a list of launch vehicles, see table 3. (right) Single launch vehicle; a few launch sites have limited capability and can use only one type of launch vehicle, e.g., Gando which uses an Orbital Sciences Pegasus spacecraft launch vehicle.

Multiple launch vehicles; Most launch sites are capable of using several types of launch vehicles, e.g., Eastern Range, Baikonur, see table 4.

Many other launch vehicles have been proposed or are under development but have not yet launched a spacecraft into orbit.

Orbits Each launch site has preferred orbits into which they launch spacecraft.

The location of the launch site is, in part, determined by its orbital inclination capability—meaning a launch site, because of its geographical location, is more efficient at placing spacecraft into certain orbits. Orbits are measured relative to the equator. This is known as orbital inclination, see figure 2.

An equatorial orbit has 0 degrees inclination to the equator.

The inclination angle determines the northern most and

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southern most points on Earth passed over by the spacecraft. If the inclination angle is 90 degrees, the spacecraft is in a polar orbit. If the inclination angle is between 90 degrees and 180 degrees, the orbit is known as a retrograde orbit. {17} Because of the earth’s rotation, the minimum energy required to place a spacecraft into orbit is obtained by launching in an easterly direction. As examples, Cape Canaveral is located 28.5 degrees North. The least energy orbit (least expensive - energy cost money) is 28.5 degrees inclined to the equator. The Sea Launch platform is located at 0 degrees North in the Pacific Ocean. Its orbital inclination is 0 degrees North, and is ideal for launching spacecraft over the equator.

Titov—the Back Story

By John Beenen

Many types of orbits are possible from each spacecraft launch site. A specific description of each of the many types of orbits is beyond the scope of this article. A general description categorized by orbital altitude is provided.

Politics and safety also influence the orbital inclination capability of a launch site. Launching over populated areas, environmentally sensitive areas or other countries may be prohibited. As an example, launching a spacecraft into an equatorial orbit from Vandenberg AFB is prohibited for two reasons, 1) the launch vehicle would travel over the very populated areas of southern California, placing many thousands of people at risk, and 2) to avoid this would require a southern launch and than an orbital plane change of nearly 90 degrees which consumes large amounts of propellant and is very expensive.

The most common types of orbits are: Low earth orbits (LEO); altitudes greater than 100 miles (170 km) but less than approximately 1500 miles (230 km). The spacecraft can see about 5% of the Earth's surface at anyone time. Signal delays between the spacecraft and earth are about.005 to.010 seconds. {21} Geostationary orbits (GEO); A geosynchronous orbit with zero inclination and appears to remain stationary in the sky as viewed from the surface of the Earth. The altitude of a spacecraft in a geostationary orbit is 22,300 miles(37,900 km) The time period is known as one sidereal day or 23h 56m 04s or 1436m 4s. A single spacecraft can view 42% of the Earth and be visible between 81 degrees’ S to 81 degrees N latitude. {21} Spacecraft can view the Earth between 60 degrees’ N and 60 degrees’ S latitude. {17} The round-trip signal delay from the earth to the satellite and return can be more than ½ of a second which can be detected by ear if using a telephone, causing an annoying delay.

Polar orbits (PO); The spacecraft travels over the north and south poles. Altitudes vary depending on the mission. The spacecraft can view 100% of the earth’s surface, requiring many orbits depending on the altitude.

Lunar orbits; Orbit with the Moon at the center. Solar orbit; Orbit with the Sun at the center. Travel from one celestial body to another involves a solar orbit. The orbit may also be known as a trans...., e.g., a translunar orbit is the path a spacecraft follows in traveling from the Earth to the Moon More information about orbits can be found in the bibliography.

(To be concluded in our next edition).

Compared to Gagarin at a first glance Gherman Titov appeared to be the more prepared cosmonaut.

In fact it was because he was the son of a teacher and as such was not preferred for propaganda reasons. Furthermore, given his physical skills he seemed better suited for a longer flight. He therefore was not chosen for the first human flight in space, something which annoyed him very much, though that only became known after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Gherman Stepanovitch Titov was born on September 11th, 1935 in the village Verknheye Zhilkino in the Altai Krai region in South Siberia. He went to school at the Stalingrad Military Aviation School. After he became an aviation pilot he was chosen for cosmonaut training. As such he was selected as one of the three final candidates for the first flights, then finally served as a backup for Gagarin.

At the age of 25, he became the youngest cosmonaut ever, a record that still stands.

He was selected for the second Vostok flight on August 6, 1961. It was a long flight, orbiting 17 times over 25.3 hours. hours. Shortly before he was blasted into space from the

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Baikonur cosmodrome in the Kazakh Republic, he sent this message via the Tass news agency. "It is difficult to express in words the feelings of happiness and pride which fill me. I have been entrusted with an honourable and responsible task." He dedicated his flight to the 22nd congress of the Soviet Communist Party to be held in October, and thanked the Soviet Government and its chairman Nikita Khrushchev.

He also sent greetings to his "great friend" Yuri Gagarin.

Once in space, Major Titov sent another greeting to Mr Khrushchev to which the Soviet leader replied: "All Soviet people are happy at your successful flight and are proud of you. We are awaiting your landing. We embrace you, Khrushchev." Major Titov spent his time doing exercises and monitoring the effects of weightlessness on his body. His call sign was ‘Oryel’ (Eagle in Russian)

attitude. During a trip to the USA he met John Glenn and his wife, visited the Redstone and Atlas rockets and saw the Mercury capsule.

The next year he was accused speeding in a car and was involved in a car accident. Also later on he caused problems with drinking and women and was accused of a hit-and-run car accident. In 1966 he appeared to have got control of himself completely and was well occupied in cosmonaut training.

By 1969 Titov felt he wanted out of the cosmonaut corps after hearing of his being banned from foreign travel. He was suffering a heavy penalty for his indiscretions. He had been banned from driving an automobile or flying an aircraft for two years, and lost his honoraria.

During his flight he carried a camera and took some pictures of the earth.

Strangely enough Gagarin had no camera on board, a fact which is referenced by disbelievers as one of the arguments making out he did not in fly into space.

Just like Gagarin he landed in the region of Saratov. Boris Chertok, one of the pioneers of the Soviet space programme, revealed in his memoirs that Titov landed dangerously close to a railway line, whilst a train was passing at the time.

After the flight the official press stated that the flight went along smoothly, but later it was revealed that Titov was the first person to suffer from space sickness. This later on appeared to be quite common, but initially it was held against him.

He was also the first human to sleep in space. He slept roughly for one orbit, and was surprised to awake with his arms floating in the air due to the absence of gravity. After securing his arms under a security belt, he went back to sleep, overslept and awoke 30 minutes too late.

After his flight Titov was often employed for publicity purposes. Already in the October of 1961 at the Crimea he and Gagarin demonstrated some wreckless behaviour: too much debauchery involving drink and women and showing

Kamanin met with Titov. In his nine-year cosmonaut career, Titov had had ten major disciplinary incidents. Kamanin told him this was the last time -- one more incident, and he would be removed from the General Staff Academy, stripped of his titles, and lose his benefits. He didn’t seem to take Kamanin seriously - to the world, he is still Cosmonaut 2, the second man in orbit.

Note however that Titov went on to assume various senior positions in the Soviet space programme until his retirement in 1992. In 1995 he was elected to the State Duma as a member of the Communist Party. He died of a heart attack in his sauna at the age of 65 in Moscow at September 20, 2000. He was buried in the Novodevichy Cemetery. Gherman Titov was awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union, two Orders of Lenin, numerous medals and foreign orders. He was also bestowed a title of the Hero of Socialist Labour of Bulgaria, Hero of Labor of Vietnam, and Hero of Mongolia. A crater on the far side of the Moon and an island in Halong Bay are named after Titov.

Gherman Titov was married to Tamara Vasilyevna Cherkas and had two children (Tatyana, born on September 23, 1963 and Galina, born August 14, 1965). Their first child Igor had died in infancy in 1960.

Literature http://en.wikipedia.org http://news.bbc.co.uk. BBC on this day www.astronautix.com Titov

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From Magnet to Multi-Media John Beenen continues his history of telecommunications beginning with the major contribution from the Russian inventor Alexander Popov Alexander Popov (1859-1906) (Russia 1995) We already have mentioned the Russian Alexandr Stepanovich Popov, as one of the inventors of the loose-packed detector, the coherer.

The question whether he or Marconi invented the first radio is academic because the before mentioned, Dt Mahlon Loomis (cf Orbit #90, p 35) certainly was sooner.

But it remains a fact that the efforts of Marconi made the radio the device as it is today. Yet, in a way, the Russian claim for the invention of the radio by Popov, however, is not completely wrong, as, speaking in terms of time-line, he certainly constructed a radio before the Italian.

Popov was born on March 16th 1859 in Turinsk, a mining village in the Urals, as one of seven children. His father was the village priest. Even at a young age he became interested in mathematics and physics and electricity in particular. For further study he went to Petersburg, where he excelled in experimental work. After finishing his studies he found a job at the Russian Marine Torpedo School in Kronstadt, where he found excellent facilities for further experiments. In 1893 he was sent to the World Exposition in Chicago where he could assimilate the latest developments of his profession.

(Popov radio, USSR 1958, WB31) In 1894 Popov constructed a reliable generator for the generation of electromagnetic waves. With regard to the coherer he took note of the developments made by Sir Oliver Lodge (cf Orbit #90, p 36) and starting from this he developed his own device. With such an apparatus he could receive lighting discharges at a distance of as much as twenty miles as he first demonstrated to the Russian Physical and Chemical Society on May 7th, 1895. Annually since then Russians celebrate May the 7th as ‘Radio Day’.

In 1896 Popov was mainly busy with X-rays, recently discovered by Roentgen, but also continued his wireless experiments and receiving Morse signals. Unfortunately no hard proof exists of a wireless telegram with the words ‘Heinrich Hertz’, which Popov apparently sent on March 24th 1896 over a distance of 250m from the University of Petersburg. If that was indeed the case he would have beaten Marconi by a couple of months.

But for Popov these experiments were more or less already very common, so he was a little surprised to read in the press all the fuss about the inventions of a certain ‘Mr.Marconi’ and somewhat before about the Indian J.C.Bose in Calcutta, who also demonstrated an instrument for the detection of Hertzian waves. There was nothing new in Bose’s and Marconi’s work as far Popov was concerned.

(Ducretet, France 1973, M1077) In spring 1897 Popov carried out trials with ships such as the Russian cruiser Africa . Still in the same year he wrote with the French engineer Eugene Ducretet (18441915) about details of his instruments. After that Ducretet started production of ‘stations for the Popov-Ducretet wireless telegraphy, system’ and started the first transmissions from the Eiffel tower, which had been newly completed in 1898. In Holland Ducretet also supplied the apparatus for the connection between the lightship Maas at Hoek van Holland in use between 1902 and 1912.

(Popov, CSSR 1959, M1171) Although Popov did not found the fuss around Marconi very justified, he had no hard feelings and when the two met in 1902. Popov sent Marconi afterwards a coat made of seal fur (at that time still possible) and a silver samovar as a wedding present.

Popov’s break-through came in November 1899 when the battleship General-Admiral Apraksin ran aground at Gogland Island in the Gulf of Finland. Although the crew was not direct danger efforts to free the ship started immediately because the water of the Gulf was beginning to freeze and the ship was not designed to survive winter Popov’s receiver consisted of a metal filings coherer as a without serious damage. No means of communication detector, an antenna, a relay and a bell, which announced existed between Gogland Island and the mainland and the discharge and at the same time tapped the coherer because of the ice it was not possible to lay a submarine into loose particles again. cable to communicate with the ship. Popov’s wireless 33

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equipment provided the only option. Due to bad weather and bureaucracy the crew to establish a wireless station on Gogland Island did not arrive before January, but at the beginning of February the messages became reliable.

A distress alert was one of the first wireless messages received on the island. An ice-floe with 50 Finnish fishermen on it had broken loose nearby. Less than 24 hours after the wireless message had been received the fishermen were rescued by the icebreaker Yermak underway to the Apraksin with supplies. The Apraksin was freed from the rocks in April.

Yet the Tsar’s naval bureaucracy was still not very receptive to innovation. Only when the Russian-Japanese war broke out in 1904 did the Russians order 24 wireless radios at the competition, Telefunken. But was a catastrophe when the border officials thought the Ruhmkorff Coils might be bombs and cut into them.

Based on this principle the first practical AC motor was built a year later by Michael Dolivo-Dobrowolsky (18621919), an engineer of the German AEG company.

In 1884, when 24 years old, he parted for America without a penny. The story is told that arriving there, he earned his first pocket money $20 by repairing a broken electromotor on the street. He expected very much of his job at the Thomas Edison Company but the gentlemen did not like each other and when Edison did not pay him properly Tesla decided to go his own way. He became an American citizen in 1889.

In May 1885 the Westinghouse Electric Company bought the patent rights of one of Tesla’s most important inventions, the polyphase system of alternating current dynamos, transformers and motors.

The War of The Currents

Popov’s health, already not very strong, deteriorated because, in his opinion, of governmental repressions against legitimate students demands and he fell seriously ill. A couple of days after, on January 13th 1906 at the age of 46 he died of a brain haemorrhage.

Three museums at Peterburg conserve the heritage of Popov, the biggest collection of artefacts being held in the Central Museum of Communication which also holds his original apparatus.

The Amazing Nikola Tesla (1856-1943) (Tesla, Yugoslavia 1936, M326) And just as we knew that Popov and some forerunners such as Lindsay and Loomis, invented radio before Marconi in 1934, the Supreme Court in the United States decided that actually the CroatianAmerican Nikola Tesla had done so before with a patent in 1892.

Possibly because of his eccentricity—Tesla was mad about science and his obvious little sense for publicity—everybody had overlooked it.

Tesla was born exactly at midnight on 9-10 July,1856 in Smiljan, Croatia, at that time part of the Austrian-Hungarian Monarchy. His father was an Serbian-Orthodox priest. After his studies at the Technical University in Graz, Austria and the University of Prague, neither of which concluded with a degree award, he started as a telephone engineer in Budapest, Hungary, where he already had made his first invention, the telephone ‘repeater’ or amplifier—in fact a loudspeaker. In 1882 he moved to Paris to work as an engineer for the Continental Edison Company. In his spare evening hours he conceived the first induction motor and began developing various devices that use rotating magnetic fields for which he received patents in 1888.

(Tesla, USA 1983, Y1499 and Sinus curve, GB 1969, Y577, M530) At this stage it is worthwhile to say something about the controversy between alternating-current (AC) and directcurrent (DC) between 1880 and 1890 featuring respectively. Tesla and Edison as leaders in rival camps. In the history books this was known as the ‘The War of The Currents’.

Edison had developed all his findings with the DC system and was not willing to give it up easily. Tesla working with George Westinghouse, on the contrary, preferred the AC system as, supported even by the electrical theory, with this system much larger amounts of power could be transported over much longer distances with less loss of power. Edison, however, claimed that the AC method was much more dangerous because of the high voltages used.

He even went so far that when the State of New York constructed the first electrical chair he proposed the AC current for it to prove that it was so dangerous, even when personally he was opposed the death penalty. He silently also paid for it. Edison, very unethically, even tried to get the method to be called ‘Westinghousing’. The first execution (of William Kemmler) on August 6, 1890, however, was a dramatic failure as the first burst was not enough to kill him. Westinghouse later commented that : ‘They would have done better using an axe’.

Finally the AC won the race as the DC method had severe limitations, especially because it could not be transported over more than several kilometres without serious loss of 34

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power and this limited it to applications where the power generator was close to the consumer.

We will not deal here with Edison further as his inventions into the direction of electrical light and the phonograph have less to do with the history of telecommunication.

Perhaps we will meet him again in a separate article later on.

(Tesla, CSSR 1959, M1170) From 1886 Tesla established his own laboratory in New York City and invented the high-frequent transformer, the ‘Tesla coil’ still used in radio, television and other electronics such as the starter motor in automobiles. The device generates high voltages at very low current.

However he was less successful with his invention of an arclighting system where he lost his patent rights.

(Tesla / Niagara, Yugoslavia 1976, M1655) Between 1886 and 1903 Tesla was at the peak of his inventive years. At the Chicago World Exhibition of 1893 the Tesla-Westinghouse method was demonstrated. His success was a factor in winning him not only the contract to install the first power machinery at Niagara Falls which carried power to Buffalo by 1896 but Chicago World’s Fair 1893, entrance also produced the ticket break-through of the use of AC current, The Tesla-Westinghouse system.

Although this system was only 25 Hz he also set the 60 Hz standard (in Europe 50 Hz) as it was the minimum level by which flickering of light was not a problem. The voltage had to be set at least between 110 and 130 Volts for the filament of the incandescent light to heat up properly.

Today in Europe 220-230 Volts is the standard. The higher the voltage the less current is needed for the same amount of power. Hence, the European standard is more economical, but money wise it is not possible anymore to go for one standard all over the world.

Direct current, or as it was formerly called ‘Galvanic Current’, for wider use by the public had already started at 1882 when Edison installed the Pearl Street Station in New York City and continued to do so until it was finally replaced

by AC systems. DC current still is in use in vehicles for engine starting, lightning, ignition and battery charging. 12 V DC is the most common standard in automobiles. Also

most telephone transmission and switching installations distribute DC power internally so that local battery banks can instantly assume the loads should external power sources fail. Computer systems generally operate with DC power. A computer power supply converts AC to DC in most common applications. Local renewable energy sources such as wind and solar power generators supply DC.

More Amazing Facts about Tesla In 1899/1900 Tesla made his greatest original invention, terrestrial stationary waves. By this discovery he proved that the earth could be used as a conductor and would be as responsive as tuning fork to electrical vibrations of a certain pitch. He also lit 200 lamps without wires from a distance of 40 kilometres and created man-made lighting, producing flashes of 40 metres. At one time he was certain he had received signals from another planet.

In 1900 he returned to New York and started the construction of a wireless broadcasting tower on Long Island (Wardenclyffe) with a $150.000 capital from the financier J.P.Morgan. He expected to provide worldwide communication and to furnish facilities for sending pictures, messages, weather warnings and stock reports.

However, the project was abandoned because of a financial panic, labour troubles and Morgan’s withdrawal of support.

Tesla was both brilliant and eccentric. Devoted to his work he stayed unmarried; he slept only three hours a night, used no coffee and tea and could not deal with money. He also had some phobia. Around 1914 Tesla was developing pronounced symptoms of obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). However, it was known that even as a youngster he suffered from a special kind of hallucinations, in which he could visualize in detail future inventions. He became obsessed with the number three: he often felt compelled to walk around a block three times before entering a building, demanded a stack of three folded, cloth napkins beside his plate at every meal, women in his neighbourhood were not allowed to wear pearls and he never slept in any hotel room with a number which could be divided by three. He also showed a progressive germ phobia and had a dislike to touch round objects and dislike fat people whom he often treated very rudely. Although he never married many women liked him and even fell in love with him. But he did not engage very much in social life yet when he did people spoke very positively and admiring about him.

In short, he behaved like a real gentleman. He refused to hold conventions without his Tesla coil blasting electricity throughout the room, despite the audience often being terrified, though he assured them everything was perfectly safe. At this time he was staying at the WaldorfAstoria Hotel, renting it in an arrangement for deferred payments.

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Still Tesla was full of futuristic ideas that not everybody liked so much. Thus, he claimed to have invented a new dynamic theory of gravity which was inconsistent to Einstein’s theory of relativity and curved space and with the modern theory concerning the structure of the atom and the mutual inter-conversion of matter and energy. He did not believe that matter and energy were interchangeable, anymore than body and soul. There is just so much matter in the universe and it cannot be destroyed. He believed that each person is just a wave passing through space, everchanging from minute to minute as it travels along, finally, some day, just becoming dissolved. Sight and sound are the only avenues by which we can observe the world, but he wondered if there exists a third sense which we have failed to discover.

Although somewhat fantastic today, what if Tesla had shared his ideas with Einstein ? Both gentlemen could have scored unforeseen results.

Tesla was a godsend to reporters who sought sensational copy. He had ideas for communication with other planets; when he was allowed, he could split the earth like an apple; and he claimed to have invented a death beam which could destroy 10.000 airplanes from a distance of 400 km.

Apart from these eccentric ideas he found more firm ground with his inventions such as transformers for the production of radio waves, the use of oil in transformers, electrical arcs fed by direct current in a magnetic field, later applied by the Danish Poulsen in the first radio telephone, gas-discharge lamps (fluorescent light) as a forerunner of the well-known neon light, the use of high-frequency for electrical massaging, a bladeless steam turbine in stead of a fan-blade one and a large ring that would encircle the earth, constructed from parts brought into space, in short, the same idea as Wernher von Braun introduced years later.

He also had an idea from what today is known as radar and of the examination of the human body by MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging).

He held about 700 patents in his name. His last patent in 1928 was of a kind of flying machine that would run without the use of an engine or on board fuel source but guided by an electromotor controlled from the ground. It would have had the form of a disc and that’s why Tesla is also loved by UFOlogists.

The last ten years of his life he lived in a two-room suite on the 33rd floor of the Hotel New Yorker, room 3327. From that period also the story exists that he had a white pigeon and when it died he saw a very bright light coming out of its eyes, so bright he even could not have created it. It made him believe that, although he was atheistic, the white pigeon was something spiritual in origin.

Tesla passed away after a heart attack on January 7 th 1943

at the age of 84 , although he had predicted he would live to become 140. He was cremated and his ashes lie in the Nikola Tesla Museum in Belgrade, Serbia. An eccentric certainly and a genius who did not get all the credit he deserved, perhaps Tesla was possibly the greatest scientist of all time until now ?

The unit of magnetic flux density, the ‘Tesla’ is called after him. There is also a crater on the Moon called after him (124,7E; 38,5N, diameter 43 km) and an asteroid #2244.

Joseph Thomson (1858-1940) (Thomson, Guinea 2001) Between all this noise one discovery should not be ignored and that is the discovery of the ‘electron’’ by the English physicist Joseph John Thomson in 1897.

It is true that the electron had been predicted before among others by the Dutchman Herman Lorentz, but Thomson was able to prove it experimentally .

When he studied a series of discharges in a high-vacuum cathode ray tube (invented by Prof. Karl Braun in 1897) J.J.Thomson interpreted the deflection of the rays by electrical charges plates and magnets as evidence for the presence of bodies much smaller than an atom. Later he concluded that the mass of those particles was only 1/1840th of the hydrogen atom. And in 1904 he suggested the model of an atom as a sphere of positive matter around which electrons are orbiting held in position by electrostatic forces, the first image of an atom.

His investigations after the number of electrons in an atom initiated the elementary experiments of his pupils Ernest Rutherford and the inventor of the mass spectrograph, Francis Aston. The term “electron” had already been coined in 1891 by G. Johnson Stoney, when the phenomenon of electricity could be explained and which started the development of modern atomic theory which I will discuss in a subsequent series of articles.

In 1906 Thomson received the Nobel Prize for physics and he received knighthood in 1908..

KDKA It is difficult to say who first made an official AM radio broadcast. But, properly speaking, What is an official radio broadcast?

A radio broadcast is a transmission by radio from an amusing character for the general public, announced in advance and on a regular basis.

The 75 W transmitter of KDKA in Pittsburgh – in the beginning also called 8XK – was the first station receiving an 36

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Eastern United States) William & John Scripps and is owned

by CBS.

official permit for broadcasts fulfilling this definition on November 2nd, 1920.

From 1917 Frank Conrad (1874-1941) employee of the Westinghouse Electric Company, started from his garage at Wilkinsburg, Penn. to broadcast records for two hours at Wednesday and Saturday evenings. This proved to be an instant success.

KCBS (until 1940: KQW) in San José makes a claim to be the first. It is a fact that Doc Charles Herrold (1875-1948) already in 1909 started a fixed programme of music and small talk but on an experimental basis. Between 1912 and 1917 he provided for weekly regular broadcasts, which had to stop on behalf of the American authorities as due to WW I amateur broadcasts were not admitted any further. Herrold became completely forgotten and died in poverty on July 1st, 1948.

In order to fill up his collection he was helped by the local record store in exchange for some ether publicity, possibly the first advertisement by radio. His bosses, the Westinghouse Electric Company were very interested as the success would stimulate the sale of their radio receivers.

Hence, they took over 8XK’s business, applied for an official license and started the station, KDKA. KDKA is not an abbreviation of anything, but just a next code on a list of sea and ground stations of the American Marine who delivered the licenses.

(Harding, USA 1923, Y249) Then on November 2nd 1920 the announcer Leo Rosenberg, technician William Thomas, telephone operator John Frazier and stand-by R.S.McClelland started in a room on the roof of the Westinghouse building in Pittsburg the report of the elections for President of the United States between the candidates Cox and Harding. Conrad himself was not present at the first broadcast but sat behind a back-up system five kilometres away for possible events. This Conrad also is responsible for the word ‘broadcast’ for such transmissions.

Also WHA (9XM) of the University of Wisconsin under direction of Prof. Earle Terry and one of his students, Malcolm Hansen, made a local programme in 1917 and claims to have been the first. Anyhow it is known that on December 4th, 1916 they transmitted a weather forecast from the Science Hall of the University. At that moment about 500 persons were able to receive the message. But they started their regular broadcasts only on January 3rd, 1921.

And there were more such as WGY in Schenectady, under direction of the General Electric Company, also transmitting on an experimental basis and from 1922 on also regularly.

WGY is also just a sequence of letters from a list but is explained as: W General Electric SchenectadY.

In 1921 the capacity of the transmitter was raised to 1 kW, which under the right conditions made the station receivable even in Europe. And it went quickly. At the end of 1922 in the United States only just over 500 stations were active.

Although KDKA had been the first station with an official permit, several other stations claim to have been the first.

(Reginald Fessenden, Canada 1987, Michel 1009). But the earliest and best known great promoter and inventor of several technical improvements to the radio, was the Canadian professor, Reginald Fessenden (1866-1932) who 37

The most important of this group is the station WWJ (before 8MK and WBL) owned by Detroit News at Detroit which started its regular broadcasts already on August 20th, 1920, before KDKA. WWJ and KDKA existed. WWJ means W(est

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already on Christmas evening 1906 at the regular frequency of ships transmitted a short programme with the Christmas story according Lucas and ‘Silent Night’ played by Fessenden himself on the violin.

station in Rocky Point, NY, after its start in 1921 known as ‘Radio Central’ The station became famous and received many guests including Marconi. Its last transmitting antenna was broken down as late as 1977.

During the next fifteen years radio became a playing ground for radio amateurs, called ‘hams’. The word was already known for a ‘bad actor’. In the beginning of radio everybody used the same frequency area and some amateur radios were so powerful that they pushed away the regular ships communication. Whenever this happened the ship was informed by other hams with the phrase: “SRI OM THOSE #&$!@ HAMS ARE JAMMING YOU” (www.arrl.org/tis/info/ history.html). Thus, in origin ‘hams’ was abusive language.

Actually, present day amateur radio still is loaded with codes and abbreviations originating from those days.

In 1926 RCA founded the first network in the USA. NBC (National Broadcasting Company) was merged from two experimental station: WJZ of Westinghouse in Newark and WEAF of AT&T in New York.

But all this American noise ignores the fact that the first real radio broadcast in the world completely complying with the definition as said before, did not take place in America but in the Netherlands !!!!

Beukstraat 8, The Hague, the first radio studio in the world

The first private owned raio transmitter in the world

(Radio 1 and 2 satellites on USSR:1979 WB 381 and USSR: 1981 WB 415; Amateur radio, USA: 1964 Yvert 776).

‘Hams’ still are here and ‘ham radio’ is a separate collection area for stamps. There is a certain overlap with our area such as the Oscar-satellites for amateur radio (Yugoslavia WB 6, Mali WB 167, Zaire WB 22) The central character for such collections is the German DL4UE (radio amateur code) Manfred G. Bussemer who also issues on a regular basis a magazine with new issues in this area.

Speaking about the development of the radio as a medium of communication, one person must not be forgotten. That is David Sarnoff (1891-1971), generalmanager of RCA. Sarnoff was trained by the Marconi Wireless Company and became legendary when during the sinking of The Titanic in the night of 14 to 15 April 1912 he continuously informed the world about the status of the event. In 1916 he tried to convince his bosses at Marconi that music as a form of entertainment had the future. As because of WWI the Marconi Company was placed under supervision of the American authorities, so Sarnoff switched to RCA. (Rocky Point NY) His first project there was to establish a huge radio transmitting

Hanso Schotanus à Steringa Idzerda, provided for the first regular radio broadcast in the world With the call PCGG Hanso Schotanus à Steringa Idzerda (1885-1944) provided for regular broadcasts from November 6th, 1919. His studio was located at Beukstraat 8 at The Hague and his programme was called: ‘Soirée Musicale’. Every programme started with a well-known Dutch song as a signature tune. The following years his ‘Dutch Concerts’ attracted much interest even from England where it could be received.

Idzerda owned his own small company , first ‘Technisch Bureau Wireless’, later the ‘Nederlandse Radio Industrie’ (NRI) (Dutch Radio Industry) and used his station mainly to sell his products such as a special radio tube and his high quality radio transmitting and receiving equipment. Through lack of money, however, he had to finish in 1924. In the meantime the ‘Hilversumse Seintoestellen Fabriek’ (NSF) (Hilversum SignallingApparatus Factory) built two transmitting antenna at Huizen with help of the Philips Company.

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In WW II Idzerda was part of the resistance movement, but was captured and in 1944 executed by the Germans.

In Germany the first official broadcasting station started on December 22nd 1920 at Königs Wusterhausen in the province of Brandenburg.

In The United Kingdom the first broadcasts started in 1920. On June 22nd the first official broadcast was made of a concert of Dame Nellie Melba from Marconi’s factory at Chelmsford, but

by November all transmissions stopped due to alleged interference with the communications of the Armed Forces.

On February 14th 1922 Marconi’s Wireless Telegraphy Company regained their license under the call sign 2MT

under direction of Peter Eckersley. Already the same year further licenses were awarded. The British Broadcasting Company was established on October 18th 1922 by British and American companies doing business in the United Kingdom.

The French started a year later on December 24th with their Radio Tour Eiffel. Other countries followed significantly later such as Italy on October 6th 1924 with a concert of Maria Luisa Boncompagni, a weather forecast and a market report. The first regular broadcasting station in Asia ‘Radio Ceylon’ started on December 16th 1925 with their services.

The entrance of mass communication in the form of radio significantly changed society in many ways. Music numbers became national and international hits, the airman Charles Lindbergh and the fighter Joe Louis became national heroes, because of the broadcasts coming into the livingroom by radio.

But about what radio has become today, a curse or a blessing, I’d like to leave such a conclusion to you !

To be continued

On the above cover of 13th September 1972…. the 3p stamp features six of the microphones used by the BBC from start at Savoy Hill until the date of issue The 5p illustrates an early domestic swan neck loudspeaker dating from the 1920’s The 7½p “the latest in TV colour cameras” The 9p two items from the transmitting equipment used by Marconi in his Bristol Channel experiments.

ASTEROIDS

Happy Birthday Our esteemed Chairman Margaret Morris reached her 80th birthday in July this year and was delighted with the good wishes of so many members. We wish our colleague and Distinguished Topical Philatelist many more years of collecting wide range of themes, exhibiting and competing nationally and internationally and (of course) good health.

Some Bits and Pieces

Godfrey Mellor We were very sorry to learn in late August of the death of our Stockport based member Godfrey who was a widely known and highly admired philatelist and one of the founding members of our society with the membership number of 88007. We extend the condolences of all members to his wife Pat. He will be greatly missed by a host of fellow philatelists, friends and relatives.

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Email Address Changes New addresses recently intimated….

Harvey Duncan — Guidance3@virginmedia.com Bruce Cranford—bruce.cranford.pe@verizon.net

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A Brief History of Ozone-Monitoring Satellites and Instruments Related covers

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ASSS Membership Renewal 2011 Member’s Name & Address…………………………………………….. ……………………………………………………………………………….

I wish to renew my membership of the ASSS for a further year and enclose the equivalent of £15 (UK)

€30 (Europe)

$US 45 (Rest of the World)

Please return this form with your remittance to Harvey Duncan by the end of July . Thank you !

Harvey Duncan Treasurer ASSS 16 Begg Avenue Falkirk Scotland FK1 2DL

PayPal

For details of how to Pay via Paypal please email Jeff Dugdale.

Email address on Page 2 Please be prepared to add 5% of your sub price to cover Paypal commission charges. Thanks !

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