Robert Rank stopped making his velvet / flocked covers in 1969 and went on to form Space Voyage Covers at around the same time. In between, there was Lunar Voyage Cachets, which ran from about 1966 to 1972. See table below which shows the approximate dates of Rank’s cover making enterprises.
In the first year of his new enterprise, ‘Space Voyage Covers’, Robert Rank was in contact with William (Bill) McAllum at NASA in an effort to receive graphics / images / information etc that he could use when making his cachet designs. We are lucky that some of this correspondence still exists, and this is shown below.
Bill McAllum (1933-1996) lived in Texas and was a NASA employee & contracter at JSC for over 25 years, between 1962-1987. He worked mainly on the Manned Spaceflight program. During this time, he developed payload accomodation requirements for the Space Station during Phase B design, as well as supporting the team developing management and integration plans for science experiments on the Space Station. Bill was a technical manager of flight experiments flown on the Shuttle Transportation System, Spacelab, Skylab and also some unmanned satellites. One of Bill’s major achievements was his research into the near-earth meteroid environment and the hazard it presents to space-flight. He was heavily involved in the development of hypervelocity impact shielding for space craft and EVA space suits. In fact Bill designed the meteroid protection for the space suit used on the first Gemini EVA in 1965. Bill wrote several technical papers on this subject.
Envelope & containing letter sent from Robert Rank to Bill McAllum – 17th/28th July 1970:
ROBERT G. RANK
545 FORTY-FIRST STREET
UNION CITY, N. J. 07087
July 27, 1970
Dear Mr. McAllum,
I make special philatelic dated satellite commemorative envelopes for stamp collectors, who consider them important historical souvenirs of the launches.
On August 9th the Orbiting Frog Otolith and Radiation Meteroid Satellite will be launched at Wallops Island. Unfortunately the only picture I have received of the “RMS” shows it in the lab and is not usable for art-work. I have received nothing on the Orbiting Frog.
Therefore I am writing to you in hopes that you can supply me with pictures of “OFO” and “RMS” and any printed descriptions that will help me explain it properly in art lettering. The pictures of the satellites must be as in orbit (or adaptable to such a depiction).
Thank you for any help you can give me. Enclosed is a sample of my Intelsat III (F-7) commemorative envelope. If you would like sample envelopes of the OFO-RMS envelope for your staff, let me know how many. I plan a limited edition of 225.
Sincerely, Robert G. Rank
Follow up letter (containing evidence that Bill McAllum helped with the OFO/RMS cover) – 13th/14th Dec 1970:
ROBERT G. RANK
545 FORTY-FIRST STREET
UNION CITY, N. J. 07087
Dear Mr. McAllum,
Thanks for your help on RM.
Several copies of the cachet are enclosed for you. Are you working on anything in the future? Or have you ever worked on any Vandenberg satellites that were “declassified”. I just got hold of some “uncacheted” Vandenberg postmarks of such items and it looks like a lot of research will be needed.
Thanks again.
Sincerely,
Robert G. Rank
Special thanks to Keri Bryan (Bill McAllum’s daughter) for her help with this article, and for providing the letters, the photograph of Bill, and his resume.