Apollo 15 postal covers incident in the moon landings, the public's fascination with items flown in space increased, as did their value. Although it was not publicly known until September 1972, 15 of the men who entered space as Apollo Program astronauts, before Apollo 15, had agreed with a West German named Horst Eiermann to autograph 500 philatelic items (postcards and blocks of stamps) in exchange for $2,500. This included a member of each mission between Apollo 7 (1968) and Apollo 13 (1970). These items were not taken into space. Covers were prepared by the crews and flown on Apollo 11, Apollo 13 and Apollo
Apollo program stages, carrying dummy upper stages filled with water. The first flight with a live S-IV was launched from LC-37. This was followed by five launches of boilerplate CSMs (designated AS-101 through AS-105) into orbit in 1964 and 1965. The last three of these further supported the Apollo program by also carrying Pegasus satellites, which verified the safety of the translunar environment by measuring the frequency and severity of micrometeorite impacts. In September 1962, NASA planned to launch four manned CSM flights on the Saturn I from late 1965 through 1966, concurrent with Project Gemini. The payload capacity would have severely