Materials from the Postmaster General's Collection

Space Stamps–Missions: Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo

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Landing on the Moon, 2000, Scott 3413, Holography

Vital steps in the U.S. race to the Moon, the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo projects formed a series of missions that quickly built up U.S. spaceflight technology. Project Mercury astronaut Alan Shepard was the first American to go into space, on a suborbital flight. Fellow Mercury astronaut John Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth. Project Gemini, named for the twins of Greek mythology, used two-man astronaut crews. Its achievements included the first U.S. spacewalks.

Project Apollo began in tragedy with the loss of three astronauts in a launchpad fire in January 1967. After resuming in October 1968, the manned Apollo missions soon led to the first lunar landing. On July 20, 1969, Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first human beings in history to walk on the surface of the Moon. This event has been commemorated by six U.S. postage stamps to date. The first one, issued in 1969, was printed from a master die taken to the Moon by the Apollo 11 astronauts.

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Apollo-Soyuz test project, 1975, Scott 1570, Gravure

International Missions
Several joint U.S.-Soviet or U.S.-Russian projects, as well as the 16-nation International Space Station, have been represented in U.S. stamps. In some cases, American and Russian designers have collaborated on the stamps as well. The Apollo-Soyuz stamps of 1975 commemorate that year’s joint exercise, in which an Apollo spacecraft was experimentally docked with a Soviet Soyuz capsule while in Earth orbit. U.S. stamp designer Robert McCall created the first of the two stamps, in which the docking is complete; Soviet designer Anatoly M. Aksamit produced the second stamp, showing the capsules still slightly apart.

An even more unusual project was a block of four stamps (Space Accomplishments issue, Scott 2631-2634) produced in 1992, the year that the Soviet Union was formally dissolved. In these stamps, milestones of the Soviet and U.S. space programs of the past are combined in each design. These stamps were jointly designed by Robert McCall and Russian designer Vladimir Beilin.

The unmanned Hubble Space Telescope is a joint project of NASA and the European Space Agency.


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Project Mercury, 1962, Scott 1193, Engraving
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“Space twins” stamps, 1967, Scott 1331 and 1332, Engraving and lithography
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Apollo 8 mission, 1969, Scott 1371, Engraving
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Apollo 11, 1969, Scott C76, Engraving and lithography
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Apollo 15, 1971, Scott 1434-1435, Engraving and lithography
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Skylab, 1974, Scott 1529, Engraving and lithography
 
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Pioneer, 1975, Scott 1556, Engraving and lithography
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Mariner 10, 1975, Scott 1557, Engraving and lithography
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Apollo-Soyuz test project, 1975, Scott 1569, Gravure
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Viking missions to Mars, 1978, Scott 1759, Engraving and lithography
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Twentieth anniversary of Moon landing, 1989, Scott 2419, Engraving and lithography
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Space shuttle Challenger, 1995, Scott 2544, Engraving and lithography
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Space shuttle Endeavour, 1995, Scott 2544A, Engraving and lithography
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Mariner 10, 1991, Scott 2568, Gravure
 
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Mariner 2, 1991, Scott 2569, Gravure
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Unmanned Lunar Orbiter, 1991, Scott 2571, Gravure
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Viking Orbiter, 1991, Scott 2572, Gravure
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Pioneer 11, 1991, Scott 2573, Gravure
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Voyager 2 and Saturn, 1991, Scott 2574, Gravure
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Voyager 2 and Uranus, 1991, Scott 2575, Gravure
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Voyager 2 and Neptune, 1991, Scott 2576, Gravure
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First Moon landing (1969), 1994, Scott 2841a, Gravure
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First Moon landing (1969), 1994, Scott 2842, 25th anniversary, Gravure
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Mars Rover Sojourner, 1997, Scott 3178, Gravure
 
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Man on the Moon, 1999, Scott 3188c, Engraving and lithography
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Pioneer 10, 1999, Scott 3189i, Engraving and lithography
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Space shuttle program, 2000, Scott 3190a, Engraving and lithography
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Return to space, 2000, Scott 3191h, Engraving and lithography
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Space shuttle landing, 1998, Scott 3261, Lithography
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Space shuttle Endeavour on Boeing 747, 1998, Scott 3262, Lithography
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Space shuttle docked at space station, 2000, Scott 3411a, Holography
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Astronauts working on Space Station, 2000, Scott 3411b, Holography