“For anyone who’s ever had trouble receiving express or overnight mail, just be thankful that one of the U.S. Navy’s late-1950s solutions to the problem never caught on—because, if it had, you could be ducking unarmed cruise missiles right now. On June 8, 1959, 46 years ago, the U.S. submarine Barbero conducted the first and last test of so-called “Missile Mail,” a concept that involved using a warhead-less Regulus cruise missile to carry—I’m not making this up—postal containers.

The U.S. Postal Service devised the Missile Mail test as a combination experiment and publicity stunt in the hopes of finding alternative uses for military technology and more expeditious methods of delivering the mail. At the time, U.S. Postmaster General Arthur Summerfield hailed Missile Mail as “the first known official use of missiles by any post office department of any nation… [and an event] of historic significance to the peoples of the entire world….”

…Still, Summerfield wasn’t all wrong; the world was on the verge of “rocket mail”—just not the type he envisioned. Ten years later, when men did walk on the moon (and Missile Mail was long forgotten), the crew of Apollo 11 secretly made a whole new family of philatelic collectibles possible.

WHAT STAMP-COLLECTING ITEM DID THE CREW OF APOLLO 11 SECRETLY PRODUCE?”

[Continue reading Geek Trivia: Air (and space) mail]