Apollo 15 postal covers incident

Common card · No. 274000

In June 1972, a scandal involving the crew of NASA's Apollo 15 became publicly known. The crew—David Scott, Alfred Worden, and James Irwin—had carried about 400 unauthorized postal covers (stamped and postmarked envelopes) into space and to the Moon's surface on the Lunar Module Falcon. Some of the envelopes were sold at high prices by West German stamp dealer Hermann Sieger, and are known as "Sieger covers". Scott, Worden, and Irwin all agreed to take payments for carrying the covers. Although they returned the money, they were reprimanded by NASA. Amid much press coverage of the incident, the astronauts were called before a closed session of a Senate committee and never flew in space again. The three astronauts and an acquaintance, Horst Eiermann, had agreed to have the covers made and taken into space. Each astronaut was to receive about US$7,000 (equivalent to $53,878 in 2025). Scott arranged to have the covers postmarked on the morning of the Apollo 15 launch on July 26, 1971. They...

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