STS-2 Columbia Dual-Signed Goldstone Tracking Station Cover — Nov. 12, 1981 View Watchlist >
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Lot # Nasa110A
System ID # 29519201
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STS-2 Columbia Dual-Signed Goldstone Tracking Station Cover — Nov. 12, 1981
Two signatures on a small airmail envelope. That's the whole object. But the date on the Barstow postmark is November 12, 1981 — the morning Columbia lifted off for the second time in history, becoming the first crewed spacecraft ever to fly twice — and the people who signed it were at Goldstone Deep Space Communications Complex that day, hands on the equipment, keeping the data link alive between the orbiter and the ground. Dianne K. Prinz, signing in black ink, and William E. Edeline, in blue — tracking personnel whose names don't appear in the history books but who were present at the moment the Shuttle program proved its defining premise. The signatures are unhurried, full, and clear. They are the artifact.
The cover itself frames them well: the station's blue cachet bearing an eagle-and-Earth motif inscribed "Engle-Truly" for the two-man crew, franked with the 18¢ "Benefiting Mankind" Space Shuttle commemorative and a 2¢ "Freedom to Speak Out" definitive, both tied by Barstow wavy-line cancels. Barstow sits about 35 miles south of Goldstone — the nearest postal facility to the complex. Cover collectors signing on-site station personnel during the early Shuttle years were assembling exactly this kind of record: not the astronauts, but the infrastructure that put them in orbit and brought them home.
History
STS-2 is the hinge point in the Space Shuttle story. Before November 12, 1981, no crewed spacecraft had ever flown twice — every capsule and orbiter before it had been expended or retired. Columbia changed that. Commander Joe H. Engle — an X-15 pilot who had reached space before NASA ever hired him — and Pilot Richard H. Truly flew the same vehicle that had carried Young and Crippen on the program's debut just seven months earlier. The mission ran two days instead of the planned five after a fuel cell failure, but it proved reusability, and reusability was the whole bet. Goldstone, operated by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory as part of the Deep Space Network, tracked the mission from the Mojave. The tradition of station personnel signing covers on launch day produced exactly this kind of paper record — a document of the people behind the antenna.
Authenticity
A Certificate of Authenticity from Mesilla Valley Estate Sales will be issued with this lot, authenticating the signatures of Dianne K. Prinz and William E. Edeline.
CONDITION
Very Good. Both signatures are clear and legible with strong ink presence — the most important attribute of this cover, and it delivers. The cachet shows light strike variation at the top header where the ink impression is slightly uneven. Cover is clean overall with minor handling wear and a few stray ink flecks along the lower edge; reverse shows faint toning, scattered light foxing spots, and a faint inverted handler's notation in magenta ink.
DIMENSIONS / SPECIFICATIONS
- Size: 3 5/8" × 6 1/2"
- Postmark: Barstow, CA 92311 — Nov. 12, 1981
- Cachet: Goldstone STDN Tracking Station, STS-2 Columbia, "Engle-Truly"
- Franking: 18¢ "Benefiting Mankind" Space Shuttle stamp + 2¢ "Freedom to Speak Out" definitive
- Signatures: Dianne K. Prinz (black ink) and William E. Edeline (blue ink), front
- Authentication: Certificate of Authenticity from Mesilla Valley Estate Sales included
