Bonnie Dunbar Signed Kwajalein Missile Range, 1981 — Astronaut Autograph View Watchlist >
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Lot # Nasa110B
System ID # 29519346
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Bonnie Dunbar Signed Kwajalein Missile Range Space Cover, 1981 — Pre-Flight Astronaut Autograph
In November 1981, Bonnie J. Dunbar was not yet an astronaut — not officially. She was a Flight Controller at Johnson Space Center, a ceramic engineer by training, a woman who had talked her way into the space program through sheer technical credibility and refusal to take no for an answer. She would be selected for the astronaut corps two years later. But here, already, she signs herself "Space Shuttle Astronaut" — not the title she held, but the one she knew was coming. That confidence, in black ink, on a 1981 airmail cover from the Kwajalein Missile Range in the middle of the Pacific, is what you're bidding on.
The cover is postmarked HONOLULU, HI / KWAJALEIN M.I. BR. / NOV 12 1981, with a purple cachet for the Kwajalein Missile Range — the Army's ballistic missile test facility in the Marshall Islands — featuring the palm-island and starburst design and the "Kwajalein Branch / APO San Francisco 96555" handstamp. It's franked with the 18¢ "Exploring the Moon" space stamp and a 2¢ "Freedom to Speak Out" Americana stamp. The reverse carries a printed biographical label documenting Dunbar's birth in Sunnyside, Washington, her B.S. and M.S. in Ceramic Engineering from the University of Washington, and her position at the time as Flight Controller/Payload Officer, Payload Operations Division, Johnson Space Center. She would go on to fly five Shuttle missions, log more than 1,200 hours in space, and serve as deputy associate administrator at NASA Headquarters. The label, the postmark, and the signature together lock a precise moment: the year before her astronaut selection, the cover already telling the story she intended to write.
Authenticity
A Certificate of Authenticity from Mesilla Valley Estate Sales will be issued with this lot. Personally confirmed by James.
CONDITION
Very Good. The signature and inscription are bold and clean with strong contrast — the most important element, and it delivers. Cachet and postmark are crisp; minor handling to the envelope edges and a small corner crease at lower right. Biographical label on verso is intact and fully legible.
DIMENSIONS / SPECIFICATIONS
- Size: 3 5/8" × 6 1/2"
- Postmark: Honolulu, HI / Kwajalein M.I. Br., Nov 12, 1981
- Stamps: 18¢ "Exploring the Moon"; 2¢ "Freedom to Speak Out"
- Signed and inscribed "Space Shuttle Astronaut" in black ink
- Biographical label on verso
- Certificate of Authenticity: Mesilla Valley Estate Sales
