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On this Day: U.S. Postal Service Attempts ‘Missile Mail’ for First and Last Time
June 08, 2008 12:10 AM
by
findingDulcinea Staff
On June 8, 1959, a U.S. Navy submarine, the USS Barbero, launched 3,000 letters via missile from Virginia to Florida.
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The United States Postal Service combined with the Department of Defense to deliver the mail in a revolutionary fashion. President Dwight D. Eisenhower was in full support of the experiment, and one of the letters to be transported was from him.
The unarmed missile and its postal payload arrived safely at the U.S. Naval Station in Mayport, Fla.
Postmaster General Arthur E. Summerfield, who witnessed the event, considered missile mail the future. He told The New York Times, “Before man reaches the moon, mail will be delivered within hours from New York to California, to Britain, to India or Australia by guided missiles.”
However, history has proved Summerfield wrong, at least for the time being. At the time of the launch, the Department of Defense saw the measure more as a demonstration of U.S. missile capabilities during the Cold War. Also, the costs of using missile mail would not have justified the benefits. More recently, the use of e-mail technology has made it that much more unnecessary.
Although missile mail was a U.S. innovation, it was preceded by a 1931 Austrian version known as rocket mail, with which engineer Friedrich Schmiedl successfully fired 100 pieces of mail from one Austrian village to another.
German businessman Gerhard Zucker then tried to popularize rocket mail in the 1930s, although he had his share of failures. In one case, he tried to launch a rocket between two Scottish Islands but an unfortunate explosion destroyed the 1,200 traveling envelopes. British officials then proceeded to deport Zucker back to Germany for “mail fraud.”
The unarmed missile and its postal payload arrived safely at the U.S. Naval Station in Mayport, Fla.
Postmaster General Arthur E. Summerfield, who witnessed the event, considered missile mail the future. He told The New York Times, “Before man reaches the moon, mail will be delivered within hours from New York to California, to Britain, to India or Australia by guided missiles.”
However, history has proved Summerfield wrong, at least for the time being. At the time of the launch, the Department of Defense saw the measure more as a demonstration of U.S. missile capabilities during the Cold War. Also, the costs of using missile mail would not have justified the benefits. More recently, the use of e-mail technology has made it that much more unnecessary.
Although missile mail was a U.S. innovation, it was preceded by a 1931 Austrian version known as rocket mail, with which engineer Friedrich Schmiedl successfully fired 100 pieces of mail from one Austrian village to another.
German businessman Gerhard Zucker then tried to popularize rocket mail in the 1930s, although he had his share of failures. In one case, he tried to launch a rocket between two Scottish Islands but an unfortunate explosion destroyed the 1,200 traveling envelopes. British officials then proceeded to deport Zucker back to Germany for “mail fraud.”
Headline Links: The advent of missile mail
On June 8, 3,000 letters were sent via missile mail from the USS Barbero Navy submarine to Mayport, Florida. A letter from President Dwight D. Eisenhower was included in the mil that made the 1,000-mile trip.
Source: Smithsonian National Postal Museum
On June 9, 1959 The New York Times published an article entitled, “U.S. Missile Delivers the Mail; Submarine Launches Regulus 100 Miles Out in Ocean.” The single article is only accessible for $3.95, or through a New York Times article package.
Source: The New York Times
Video: Missile mail clip
Aviation.com provides a newsreel clip from 1959 explaining the historic event. The narrator quotes one person observing the missile launch: “practical and economic for the future? Very likely.”
Source: Aviation.com
Background: The history of rocket and missile mail
History of rocket mail
King George V Silver Jubilee, a site dedicated to the collection of postage stamps and postal history, offers a history of rocket mail, filled with photographs of the individuals and postage stamps involved.
Source: King George V Silver Jubilee
“Experimentation with rocket cargo delivery was a favorite pastime for many tinkerers early in the 20th century, and the practice gradually became refined enough to be taken seriously,” according to an article from the news-and-trivia Web site Damn Interesting. “But as flashy as it was, the inherent problems with rocket mail rapidly became apparent. Perhaps most significant was the unfortunate tendency of the rockets to blow up, an issue which could arise at almost any point during the launch, flight, or landing.”
Source: Damn Interesting
America’s attempt at missile mail
Retro Future says that President Eisenhower’s participation gave the measure added weight. Furthermore, “The 1959 ‘missile mail’ experiment employed a state-of-the-art guidance system, capable of accurately delivering a 2800 kiloton thermonuclear weapon from 600 miles away.”
Source: Retro Future
In January 1957, an article appeared in Mechanix Illustrated magazine claiming to reveal the future of the U.S. mail: “Mail Via Rocket.” The article, replete with illustrations, writes: “When will this closely-coordinated missile mail service be in operation? According to Hall L. Hibbard, head of Lockheed Aircraft’s Missile Division, missile mail and freight will be possible by 1965. MI agrees—and we foresee that the speed of the service will require a smooth-working, speeded-up city-to-rocket base and ground handling system to exploit its fullest potential.”
Source: Modern Mechanix
Related Topic: Missiles with nothing to do
America’s stock of intercontinental ballistic missiles has shrunk substantially since the heyday of the Cold War, as the U.S. no longer has to counter the Soviet threat. The question becomes what to do with the 500 remaining missiles and the large 9,000-man team that maintains them. “It’s too late to revive Missile Mail. Now, after all, we have the Internet. And so we have the non-nuclear ICBM,” writes Fred Kaplan of Slate.
Source: Slate
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