Page 92 - The Appollo Story

------------.The Apollo Story t------------.._

Apollo 15 (AS-510) Hadley Rille
This Cover is a facsimile of one of 398 covers that were flown to the Lunar Surface on Apollo 15. Origi-
nally 100 covers were requested to be flown to the Moon by H. Walter Eiermann who was acting on behalf
of German Stamp dealer, Hermann Sieger. The crew agreed in return for a trust fund of $7000 being set up
for each Astronaut in a Swiss Bank Account. The crew also wanted to carry a further 300 covers for them-
selves, but 2 were destroyed before the flight, making the total number of covers flown 398.
The covers were not listed in the Crews preference kits, but instead carried in the pocket of Dave Scott's
space suit. Once back from the moon and while on the USS Okinawa the crew added the twin 8c stamps
and had the covers cancelled and date stamped at the on-board ship's post office, they then signed the cov-
ers on the flight from Hawaii back to Houston.
Of the total 398 covers, 100 were sent to Hermann Sieger and the remaining 298 were kept by the Apollo
15 Crew. It had been agreed that no covers be sold until after the completion of the Apollo program, but
Seiger started selling his 100 covers almost immediately at $1,500 each.
When the crew heard about the sale, they tried to retrieve the covers from Sieger, but were unsuccessful
and so tried to save their reputations by returning the $7,000. However a Congressional investigation
wanted to make an example of the Astronauts and so NASA had no choice but to suspend them from flight
status. NASA also confiscated the 298 covers.
In 1983 Al Worden successfully had the 298 covers returned to the crew after suing the United States fed-
eral government when similar covers were to be flown on the Space Shuttle. It is thought that had the crew
declared the covers in the first place then there would have been no problem.

THIS ENVELOPE WAS
CARRIED TO THE MOON
ABOARD THE APOLLO 15
#-22 OF .fOO ro THI
LU~SURFACE IN
L. M. "FALCON"

A Facsimile of an Apollo 15 Flown to the Lunar Surface Sieger Cover