
Apollo 15 postage stamp incident - danielsiders
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_15_postage_stamp_scandal
======
jedberg
> some said astronauts should not be allowed to reap personal profits from
> NASA missions.

That's an interesting ethical question. At what point is it ok for someone who
got paid by the government to do a job ok to make extra money _because_ of
that fact.

These days most Presidents get to write books about their time in the White
House and make money. Buzz Aldrin still goes to cons and signs autographs for
money.

So where does the line belong?

~~~
reitzensteinm
This would be more like the President renting out a room in the White House. I
think the line is actually pretty clear; if you're using state resources to
produce something of value to sell for private profit, you're on the wrong
side of it.

While 400 stamps don't weigh a lot, they'd still cost more than $1 each to
launch by my back of the envelope calculations. You're effectively footing
NASA with a $500 bill to pocket $21k.

~~~
jedberg
But they are allowed to bring personal items on board. The error here was
clerical. In fact some of the covers were listed under the personal items
section.

So was that wrong? They opted to take those instead of other personal items.

~~~
reitzensteinm
I believe the profit motive made it wrong, yes. It creates a fundamental
conflict of interest in the allocation of taxpayer resources.

This might not have been a severe case, but NASA was absolutely right to come
down on it hard.

~~~
TheSpiceIsLife
Or, it demonstrates a lack of foresight by NASA to take advantage of an
opportunity to sell a bunch of stamps over the following decades at _wildly_
inflated prices.

There must be at least a handful of items that don't weight a lot per 1000
units that could have gone to the moon and back. I'm thinking pretty much any
paper document or certificate, cash notes.

~~~
dr_dshiv
That's how Hearst funded the first round-the-world flight, on the Grad
Zeppelin. Novelty stamps!

But mixed motivations can be confusing and demotivating.

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mimixco
Fascinating. I'd never heard this.

Also of interest are the "insurance covers" signed by Apollo 11 astronauts as
a form of life insurance and mentioned in a linked Wikipedia article.

~~~
daveslash
It wasn't just Apollo 11, it was Apollo 11-16. What blew me away about this
was the fact that this was, in essence, DIY life-insurance because they
_couldn 't_ get insurance. I never gave it much though; I just assumed that
the U.S. government would have agreed "okay guys, if you get killed going to
the moon, we'll make sure your families are taken care of". Guess not? From
the Wikipedia page on Apollo Insurance Covers _" The ability of astronauts to
obtain much life insurance was limited, so they signed hundreds of postal
covers before they left, on the presumption that they would become highly
valuable in the event of their death."_
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_insurance_covers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_insurance_covers)

------
m463
I have an official flight cover from the challenger space shuttle.

These covers didn't make it to the moon, but they flew on the shuttle and were
officially sanctioned.

They are a plentiful and inexpensive piece of history - you can get them on
ebay for about $20 (search for "STS-8 cover" or similar)

------
wbrasky
why has the title been changed from "covers" (which is what they were) to
"stamp" which is a less specific form of what they were? Why are we not just
using the article title?

~~~
wyattpeak
Because most people have no idea what covers are, and unless you collect
postage stamps the difference means nothing to you. If you'd asked me before I
met a friend who collects, I would have assumed that using a stamp would
render it worthless.

The article's talk page actually has a similar discussion over whether to call
them stamps or covers in the title, so although they come down on your side
its hardly a given.

~~~
homero
I still don't understand what a cover is. Is it the cancellation stamp?

~~~
astura
A cover is essentially an envelope (it got it's name because it covers the
contents), usually stamped and those stamps cancelled.

Here's some examples of fancy covers:

[https://store.usps.com/store/results/collector-s-zone-
first-...](https://store.usps.com/store/results/collector-s-zone-first-day-
covers/_/N-1omg4l9)

------
dmix
TIL what a "postal cover" was, and how "cancelled envelopes" work.

Which made me realize how little I've ever used the postal services for actual
letters in my life. My generation (late 80s / early 90s) must be one of the
last to interact with the postal system when personally sending letters to
people, rather than just parcels.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Event_cover](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Event_cover)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cancellation_(mail)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cancellation_\(mail\))

------
interfixus
The early astronauts made all kinds of extra on the side. Sponsored cars,
magazine exclusives and various similar shenanigans. I didn't understand then
(which I'm old enought to remember), and I do not understand now why the stamp
incident was singled out and hammered so severely.

Davis Scott had handled himself superbly during his two previous flights, and
Apollo 15 was in all relevant respects a huge success, most visibly so for
premiering the lunar rover and bringing back the genesis rock.

~~~
caymanjim
There's a difference between running a side game on your own time and
smuggling schlocky trinkets on a mission of national significance under a
international spotlight. I suppose you can spin it as a triumph of capitalism,
but most people would consider it an embarrassment.

~~~
sisu2019
It's only an embarrassment if you have a deep seated anti-commercial bias.
Sure, your adjectives are quite invocative but let's contrast your prose with
reality:

> smuggling

Taking something personal in the space assigned for personal use is not
smuggling.

> schlocky trinkets

Envelopes from space are pretty neat and evidently highly valued by the people
that ended up buying them. Those people now have something that is nearly
unique and very special to them. Have you personally ever created or done
something as meaningful for other people?

> national significance

No doubt. But how come a government bureaucracy like NASA can't make cool
memorabilia like that to give to the fans that payed for all of it but can
only watch?

> international spotlight

Few people cared about Apollo 15. It's actually already legendary how hard the
public interest dropped off after the first few landings.

> triumph of capitalism

It is a triumph, absolutely. Hundreds of people got something really
meaningful for them that they would not have gotten otherwise. The astronauts
got a well earned pay off. Humanity got artifacts that will be preserved down
the ages. Nobody was hurt or exploited. Win Win Win all around

~~~
simonh
It’s nothing to do with commercial bias. The personal effects allowance was
assigned in order to aid astronaut morale. If they’re sacrificing allowance
for personal items commercially that creates a perverse and distracting
situation. Also personal effects are supposed to go through a approval
process, which at least some of these covers bypassed. Do you really want
astronauts making trade offs between genuinely personal items and effectively
commercial cargo?

~~~
Beldin
"The personal effects allowance was assigned in order to aid astronaut
morale."

This strikes me as a weird reason to object: surely, Getting significant
financial gain could help aid morale.

I'm not in favour of astronauts using their launches to establish a for-profit
souvenir business. But I'm not objecting to that on the grounds of their
morale.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
They needed to be recorded and approved as safe for the cabin. These were
smuggled. It was a breach, and was punished.

If they'd applied, who knows, they might have been approved. Afterward,
everybody talks about how awful it was. But that was just blather.

------
qwertox
They recently tried to auction one at 22.000€, but apparently it was too much.
Still for sale, though.

[https://www.eppli.com/de/Product/DetailByNo?no=981734](https://www.eppli.com/de/Product/DetailByNo?no=981734)

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KnightOfWords
From the title, I assume that when NASA realised they couldn't meet the Apollo
15 launch schedule they simply farmed the problem off to the Postal Service,
by covering the rocket with stamps?

