Wednesday, 14 September 2022

Qatar stamps - The space race of 57 years ago

The 1950's and 60's saw the start of the space race. Part of that race began with the placement of satellites in space. I have writing about this space race in two previous blogs (21 September 2021 - First steps into the space program, and 23 September 2021 - Reaching for the Starts). 

This time around, I shall look a little closer at what is portrait in these stamps. The first is is the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) issue of 1965 which celebrates the successful launch and operations of the first permanent geosynchronous satellites leading to the first world wide radio and television broadcasts.

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As can be seen from the below slide the satellite achievements included the televised Tokyo 1964 Olympic Games, the report of the assassination of President John. F. Kennedy.

By 1966 the England World Cup was the first to be transmitted world wide in colour.

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NASA rocket - the Artemis - which is the proof rocket for the future moon exploration. Just like todays' Artemis launch. The original Gemini 6 was cancelled (initially scheduled to liftoff on the 25th of October 1965) by a technical fault.

The Gemini Rendezvous was the design proof concept for the Apollo moon exploration. This latter one required the moon lander to eventually rendezvous with the remaining part of the rocket for its eventual return to earth.

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Luckily most of the astronauts present in the two Gemini Rocket have been captured by a different set of stamps issued by Qatar, with the only exception of the Commander of Gemini 7 - Astronaut Frank Frederick Borman. Borman and Lovell set the a fourteen day spaceflight endurance record in Gemini 7 while waiting for the Gemini 6A Rendezvous. Was also the Commander of Apollo 8 (it being his second and last spaceflight). During this last trip they (Frank Frederick Borman, James Arthur Lovell and William Alison Anders) were the first astronauts to orbit the Moon.

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The video of the Gemini Rendezvous can be seen below.




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