Space - A South African perspective
I had recently purchased additional material that I want to include to update the exhibit from a 1 frame exhibit to a 2 frame exhibit.
I have also currently been browsing the internet and especially SANSA (South Africa National Space Agency) and found a book published in 2010 about the CSIR SAC (Space Applications Centre) which contains quite a bit of information about SA's involvement in Space which i had not previously been aware of.
Together with the additional material I purchased I expect my exhibit to change quite a bit, but it will be some time (1 year plus) before I feel I will be ready for an updated exhibit. Any comments on the current exhibit are however appreciated.
If anybody has any material relating to Hartebeeshoek or anything to do with astronomy in South Africa that they would like to part with, I would be extremely interested
John Kollen
John
I found your display very interesting. Some suggestions and a "theory of mine":
1.0 Early covers (prestamp) exist from the Maclear correspondence, and not expensive. Many of those addressed to his wife, were written in crisscross (palimpsest) fashion and are very attractive.
2.0 Did the Vela incident leave any philatelic traces?
The "Vela incident", also known as the South Atlantic Flash, was an unidentified double flash of light detected by an American Vela Hotel satellite near the Prince Edward Islands in the Indian Ocean. (The most southern point of South Africa).
The cause of the flash remains officially unknown, and some information about the event remains classified by the U.S. government. While it has been suggested that the signal could have been caused by a meteoroid hitting the satellite, the previous 41 double flashes detected by the Vela satellites were caused by nuclear weapons tests. Today, most independent researchers believe that the 1979 flash was caused by a nuclear explosion — perhaps an undeclared nuclear test carried out by South Africa and Israel.
Many of the "Marion Island" covers of the period 1979 and after, bear a rectangular handstamp "NEUTRON RESEARCH \ POTCHEFSTROOM." I find it too coincidental that the University carrying most of the nuclear research in South Africa, was out in the cold at this particular time and without international co-operation.
In the early 80s there were a lot of demonstrations against "neutron bombs", which were considered the "capitalist bomb" as it could kill people but spare buildings. Based on the demonstrations in Western capitals and the US, their development stopped. I remember many articles in the "Sunday Times" in the early 80s regarding these nuclear bombs.
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Hi Yannis, welcome back. Your comments are as ever very interesting. That is also a lovely cover you have posted, a bit too modern for me but one which would fit nicely into John's display.
I remember the "capitalist" bomb and have mixed feelings about it. Wars are bad and wrong and we should do our best to end them and not to kill each other but if we must, then the capitalist bomb offers the slaughter of war without its consequent destruction.
I had a friend who worked on SA's nuclear bomb project. He never spoke about it other than to say that the only reason he got involved was the challenge of the science. Having built the bomb in great secrecy, the South African Atomic Energy Board created a bomb test site in the Kalahari Desert at the Vastrap weapons range north of Upington. This was detected by the Russians who informed the Americans who flew a Lockheed SR-71 (Blackbird) spy plane over the site. It confirmed what the Russians feared, that SA was preparing to test a nuclear bomb. International pressure on SA stopped the test. The Vastrap site presumably had a post office, albeit one subject to security and censorship. However, the only 'Vastrap' post office listed in Putzel is in the Transvaal. So, SA's nuclear bomb site mail probably went through Upington or more likely in a special bag to Pretoria. I wonder if anyone has any examples of this mail?