Astronaut

In honor of Astronaut Scott Kelly, who returned to earth on March 1, 2016 following a 1-year space mission, on board the International Space Station, to study the effects of weightlessness on the human body, in a effort to aid future flights to Mars...

I picked this up on ebay. I do not know who the artist is, except for the initials AH. I purchased it because I liked the presentation of the astronaut. I can only guess that the use of the Year 2000 first day cover and the ancient figures moving from the stamp demonstrate man progression from early times to the space age...

I usually do not provide critiques but kudos to this unknown artist!..

I have been a collector of space related material since I a child. I can remember being ushered into the school auditorium watching a black and white TV that had been rolled into the room and set up in front of the students. As a group we watched John Glenn's ascent into space, and ever since I've wanted to be Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers and Commando Cody reaching out into space and finding adventures beyond the comic book and television screen. I will still choose to watch a space related movie or book over anything else...

I had the opportunity to meet US Astronaut Buzz Aldrin and Russian Cosmonaut Gherman Titov, when I attended the World Stamp Expo, Nov 1989 in Washington, DC.  I did bring covers with me to created first day covers, but I also brought a blank book to create a journal of the event. ..

each page of the journal had a stamp canceled from the respective country in attendance, to which I added appropriate art. The first page featured the Space Day cancel with the joint-issued US and Soviet Union space issues.

Second page from the book with the First Day cancel for the 20th Universal Postal Congress stamps showing future of mail delivery (e-mail, texting, twitter were not mentioned)...

Knowing Buzz Aldrin's aversion to signing philatelic mail I asked him to sign a blank page in the book, to which I later added his portrait. There were no stamps placed or postmarked on this page. This way even though the entire book is a philatelic item, the page he signed was not directly philatelic in nature...