ANOTHER CIRCUIT OF THE STAR

Another 12 months have come and gone and I celebrated my 63rd birthday with some fine gifts, including some cool space stamps. The above set from Fujeira feature six  early American satellites, such as Pioneer, Telstar, Tiros, Ranger and the first sucessful launch, Vanguard.

This set of later stamps from Yemen entitled 'Conquest of the Moon' has some interesting US designs for space vehicles, including the tubular roving laboratory, Moon Tractor and the bell shaped space suit.
 

The tractor image may have been based on an early test article for a moon roving vehicle and the bell suit is certainly a representative of Republic Aviations concept model of an environment suit.

Like so many early concept images that were circulating in the press, the bell suit found its way into a toy version, in Marx 1962 'Operation Moon Base' set, along with a second version, would would later be developed into a more streamlined option.

Keen to capitalise on the idea after the suit design appeared on the cover of Life magazine in 1962, Mattel produced a version for their 6" poseable figure line Major Matt Mason, some years later in 1967.

A second set of Yemen stamps commemorating 'Flights to the Planets' contrast the early visualisations of space travel with actual space probes.

Stamps from Yemen have also featured images of concept vehicles which were again used by the toy industry.

Finally a slight departure from Space, but a subject which also fascinated me as a child, Dinosaurs. This partial set of five Polish stamps show early marine life and reptiles which predated the larger saurians.

ROMANCE OF THE RED PLANET

The spectre of the Red Planet has haunted me from a very early age, enchanting me with visions of mysterious Martians populating the remote world. Although the Moon was always clearly documented and mapped, Mars always appeared ambiguous and occulted by distance and speculation.

Schiaparelli's early attempts at mapping the surface in the late 19th century began a school of thought which suggested that Mars was teeming with life, both vegetative and intelligent, as observers seemed to see darker areas of the surface change with seasonal regularity, giving rise to the idea that Mars has lush plains of grasses. The straight lines which he saw, he described as 'canali' which meant gulf or canyon, but the name became synonymous with the traditional waterway and speculation on purposeful engineering on the surface began to take hold.

American astronomer Percival Lowell claimed to have confirmed the existence of these 'canals' on Mars and spent considerable time mapping and documenting his sightings. Lowell subsequently came under considerable criticism for his theories, but the Lowell maps and observations were used as the basis of modern maps until 1962 and the canal theory was only finally disproved when Mariner finally took detailed photographs of the barren surface two years later.

As a boy, I kept a scrapbook of snippets relating to the space race and once found an old newspaper with the headline showing the memorable mission some years earlier. As I was only about 6 or 7 at the time, I took great delight in colouring in the newsprint photo with a red crayon!

Today Mars has been inspected, mapped, drilled and sampled by probes, orbiters and rovers and is close to finally revealing its secrets, when samples are finally returned from the Perseverance rover mission. Just this month, the president elect of the United States announced his intention to restart the Mars race and put an american on Mars within the next decade.

However exciting the plans and the cascade of new images being beamed back from the current probes, showing acres of barren rust coloured rock, there is something much more attractive about the innate mystery of the red planet, as seen through the eyes of the early visionaries, who speculated on the possibility of life beyond Earth.

One fine example of this vision, executed in beautifully intricate paintings is the 1964 book, simply titled 'Mars' by Robert Richardson and illustrated by the great Chesley Bonestell.

Bonestell was the go-to astronomical artist from the 1950's onwards and is responsible for some of the most breathtaking illustrations of the planets and the proposed space missions.

Richardson's text is full of complex mathmatical data and theories, but is still reliant on the observations from the larger telescopes such as Lick and Flagstaff for the maps and photographs of the martian surface. The lack of concrete information about the planet - which would be provided very shortly after its publication, when the Mariner probe would arrive, is offset by the wonderfully evocative paintings from Bonestell.

The journey to Mars would be carried out by ion powered ships, slowly accelerating by virtue of the electrically generated thrust. Ion engined craft would only be perfected decades later and put to use in probes such as New Horizons and Psyche.

There are only a few colour plates in the book, but all of them are beautifully rendered and show the main stages of a manned landing and excursion on the martian surface.

Clearly, some of the information is entirely incorrect and speculative, but the beautifully frosted mountains being explored by a diminuitive rover and the sun baked terrain really capture the mood.

The book covers all aspects of a projected mission and goes into considerable detail about the practicalities of achieving the objectives, as well as suggesting what conditions the astronauts may encounter on arrival. Richardson is very careful to not entirely debunk Lowells suggestions about canals and intelligent life, but his scientific arguments are solid and well documented.

Towards the end of the volume is a very early illustration of the Voyager Probe, which was initially intended as a Mars landing mission in the late sixties and what would have been an updated Mariner craft. The project would ultimately see fruition some decades, as the Viking programme.

The endpapers for the book show identical monochrome illustrations of the main spacecraft undergoing essential repairs, prior to landing.

A STAR TO STEER HER BY

 

Collectable space ephemera has become more popular since the anniversary of the moon landing, as the event becomes a much greater part of social history, especially as plans are in place for a return to the moon in the next few years. As a result, more and more material appears for sale on ebay, as people discover old files and scrapbooks, tucked away in cupboards and drawers. Although some of the material is overpriced and overrated, there are still items to be found quite cheaply, which are of quite profound interest.

As I have noted earlier, during the run up to the moon landing, space information was everywhere, from foodstuffs to toys, commercials to newspapers, as being a hot topic, it was almost guaranteed to secure attention. In a recent lot of ephemera I picked up was a large document, the same shape and format as a 33 rpm record album cover (although there is no indication that a disk was included) from Wiggins Teape Paper manufacturers. The 'Lunar Orbit' pack is undated, but appears to date from around 1969.

As Wiggins Teape are a paper company, the folder functions as a sampler for various paper types and weights, with one of the stocks being named 'Orbit'. The folder has images from Apollo missions and the moon on the cover and contains a range of loose items printed on various stock weights. In the pack are a fold out moon landing Flight Plan, based on the official NASA resource and what appears to be facsimiles of data sheets from the mission.

These include biogrqphical data on the Apollo 11 crew members, Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins and another foldout of the proposed landing area on the moon.

Its impossible to gauge if the pack is complete and it is probable that pieces are missing. There are two sheets of comms chatter from Apollo 8 included on lighter paper stock and a series of images of the LEM landing sequence, printed on card.

Other items include stats on Earth and Lunar orbit characteristics, as well as a quotation printed in embossed type on another grade of board. The emphasis seems to be on promoting the paper stock, rather than informational veracity, with the data and images chosen to best show the characteristics of the print stock, rather than the info.

Along with the Lunar Orbit pack, the seller included various other items, such as posters and other leaflets. One of which was a a tie in to aYorkshire TV programme 'Heavens Above' and was probably a mail away from the TV series. It consists of a small A5 folder with a larger sheet inside and pages of information about star gazing and astronomy in the UK.

The seller was clearly an amateur astronomer in the day and the lot offered a pair of plastic Planispheres, a small pocket version and a large 12" diameter version, for predicting and discovering the formation of the constellations on any given night.

Possibly one of the best items in the lot is a large format Rand McNally Moon Map, dated 1990, with a good clear representation of all the major features of the lunar surface, as visible by telescope.

A second McNally publication of a solar system poster was included, probably from the same series.

Finally an earlier Daily Telegraph 'Sky At Night' poster, by Geographia. It is undated, but has been wall mounted at some point, so is probably of 1960's vintage.