The cover, which includes a certificate of authenticity confirming the item has been personally signed by Jay, who has visited the Isle of Man on a number of occasion also includes two specially commissioned gold postmarks recording the date Apollo 13 left Cape Canaveral and the historic return to earth on April 17th 1970.
Jay has signed each copy in this limited edition of 500 that also features two of the Apollo XIII stamps from the One Giant Leap Issue released earlier this year.
Jay has also written an account exclusively for Isle of Man Post office, recalling what happened at Mission Control in Houston when Jim Lovell radioed from the spacecraft with those now-familiar words - “Houston, we’ve had a problem here. We’ve had a Main B Bus under-volt”
When the power in the main spacecraft was lost, the Flight Director ordered that the Lunar Module be powered up and used as a lifeboat. The LM didn't have enough consumables to sustain the crew for the journey back to Earth, but it was the rigorous training and never fail attitude of the Mission Operations Team that came up with a solution that saved the lives of the crew.
Jay Honeycutt said "The emergency that NASA encountered on Apollo 13 was the most difficult challenge that the flight operations world had ever faced, even more so than the Lunar Landing. It proved to be a tremendous example of teamwork, showing the world the best of NASA’s ingenuity, professionalism, and “never say die” attitude. The activities that were required to save the crew were memorialized in the phrase 'Failure is not an Option'.
President Nixon presented the Presidential Medal of Freedom to the crew, and to the Mission Operations Team. Mine hangs proudly in my home."
This limited edition cover is available to purchase online – www.iompost.com/one-giant-leap where you will also find details of other exclusive products including a Charles Duke Moonwalker Signed Cover and other 50th Anniversary of the Moonlanding collectables. All products are complete with free worldwide delivery.