Echoes-From-Apollo: June 2012

Here is my vintage 'Recovery Requirements Apollo 7 (AS-205/101)' which I purchased in an online auction for a very reasonable price. And boy am I glad I did. I got this item at its' offered price. It fits what I love to buy in every respect. It is obviously used, worn, and has notations on the cover which were probably made by someone during the heyday of the manned space program in the sixties. The 'REIM' printed on the cover may be Milton Reim, a Nasa Public Affairs Officer during that time, which would also fit in with the 'QUERY DESK' notation. It is dated August 29, 1968. Apollo 7 launched on October 11, 1968 with Astronauts Wally Schirra, Walt Cunningham, and Donn Eisele. This was the first manned Apollo mission after the Apollo 1 fire that killed Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee.

When I buy these types of items, sometimes I find, what are to me, priceless little nuggets in them. That is what happened with this item. When I received the item I opened it up and found the two foldouts shown below. As can be seen, Cunningham signed both of them for me at Spacefest. He has one of the best signatures of all the astronauts as far as I'm concerned. These would be ideal for framing!

'APOLLO 7 LAUNCH ABORT AREAS AND
RECOMMENDED FORCE DEPLOYMENT'

'APOLLO 7 RECOVERY ZONES, CONTINGENCY AREA AND RECOMMENDED AIRCRAFT STAGING AREAS'

There were a couple of other pages in this item I also found interesting as shown below.

'Figure A2- Apollo 7 spacecraft configuration at launch'

'Figure 2-1 - Apollo 7 launch and deorbit events'

Here is my 'Apollo 15 LM Timeline Book-Basic' dated April 5, 1971 purported to have belonged to Apollo 15 Astronaut Dave Scott. Below that is the COA which accompanied the item. The COA describes this item as 'Dave Scott's Apollo 15 LM Timeline Book'. It is signed by Scott in black sharpie and someone (Scott?) also printed his name in the upper right corner. Even though the COA attributes ownership to Scott, I am a little doubtful that the auction house can directly connect this to Scott based solely upon this info. I actually showed this item to Scott at Spacefest and he was reluctant to verify that this item ever belonged to him or that he printed his name in the upper right corner! Thanks Dave! Even if no direct link other than the COA can be made to Scott, it is still a very nice vintage item. Look below to see how I tried to compare the printed name on this item with a known printed sample made by Scott.

COA

I obtained the below copy of printed names for many of the Apollo astronauts via an e-mail. It contains a known Scott printing of his last name. Bear in mind there is probably a multi year gap between the printing on the Book and the printing on the below page. Below this list is the enlarged printed name from my LM Timeline Book for comparison.

Comparing the two, I do see some similarities. In both, the 'S' is much larger than the 'co'. The 'T's' in both are printed as capitals and not in the lower case 't'. And both 'T's" are crossed almost as one single line and not two separate crossings. I would like to obtain additional examples of Scott's known printing in order to further compare the printing.

Here is the same item as it was offered for sale on Live Auctioneers in May 2003. The description states: 'From the personal collection of and signed on the cover in black ink by Astronaut David Scott. Ex the David Scott Collection'. I purchased the item in 2011 so this item may have passed through numerous collectors since 2003.

Here is the picture of the item from the 'Live Auctioneers' 2003 web page.

Here is a similar type book (Revision B) offered for sale in the Lunar Legacies June 2012 auction. The item is described as 'Apollo 15 Astronaut Dave Scott's personal copy of the Apollo 15 LM Timeline Book'. Below that is an enlarged picture of the item. You can see from the picture of this item that Scotts' name as printed is identical to the printed name on my book. One thing is for certain, the same person printed Scott's name on both these books.

Here are a couple of other pictures of Apollo 15/Apollo manuals which show Scotts' name printed on them in the same style. You be the judge. Same person printed all or not? Personally, I used to always print my name on my school books to identify them. All of the below items were listed for sale on Live Auctioneers in May/November 2003. All were described as 'Ex: the David Scott Collection'.