Plan B Forum

dales wrote:No, I got the card sometime around 1961-62.

The Smithsonian would like to add to its national collection a Pan American Airways (Pan Am) “First Moon Flights” Club card as an example of early enthusiasm for space travel.  When the renovated Boeing Milestones of Flight Hall is completed in July 2016, one of the artifacts that will be featured will be SpaceShipOne, winner of the Ansari X Prize in 2004 as the first privately developed, piloted spacecraft.  But long before 2004, there were those who had hoped spaceflight could someday be accessed just by purchasing a ticket.  If you own one of these cards, and it is in excellent condition, we invite you to fill out our object donation form.  Between 1968 and 1971, Pan Am issued over 93,000 “First Moon Flights” Club cards to space enthusiasts eager to make a reservation for the first commercial flight to the Moon.  Issued at no cost, the membership cards were numbered according to priority.  The Club originated from a waiting list that is said to have started in 1964, when Gerhard Pistor, an Austrian journalist, went to a Viennese travel agency requesting a flight to the Moon.  The agency forwarded his request to Pan Am, which accepted the reservation two weeks later and replied that the first flight was expected to depart in 2000.
https://airandspace.si.edu/stories/edit ... 80%9D-club

Bicycle Bill wrote:

dales wrote:No, I got the card sometime around 1961-62.

Better check your timeline again.  Considering the first Mercury launch was a sub-orbital flight with Alan Shepherd as America's first astronaut in 1961, and the first orbital Mercury flight didn't take place until John Glenn circled the globe three times in "Friendship 7" in 1962, I think your memory is a little faulty.

And even the Smithsonian agrees with me:

The Smithsonian would like to add to its national collection a Pan American Airways (Pan Am) “First Moon Flights” Club card as an example of early enthusiasm for space travel.  When the renovated Boeing Milestones of Flight Hall is completed in July 2016, one of the artifacts that will be featured will be SpaceShipOne, winner of the Ansari X Prize in 2004 as the first privately developed, piloted spacecraft.  But long before 2004, there were those who had hoped spaceflight could someday be accessed just by purchasing a ticket.  If you own one of these cards, and it is in excellent condition, we invite you to fill out our object donation form.  Between 1968 and 1971, Pan Am issued over 93,000 “First Moon Flights” Club cards to space enthusiasts eager to make a reservation for the first commercial flight to the Moon.  Issued at no cost, the membership cards were numbered according to priority.  The Club originated from a waiting list that is said to have started in 1964, when Gerhard Pistor, an Austrian journalist, went to a Viennese travel agency requesting a flight to the Moon.  The agency forwarded his request to Pan Am, which accepted the reservation two weeks later and replied that the first flight was expected to depart in 2000.
https://airandspace.si.edu/stories/edit ... 80%9D-club

-"BB"-

It was Christmas Eve, 1968, and three American astronauts had just become the first human beings to orbit the moon. But it wasn’t the only major news that day. Pan Am airlines announced plans for commercial flights to the moon – and they were so confident it would happen soon, they started a waiting list. And so the “First Moon Flights” Club was born – attracting more than 93,000 members over the next two decades, each convinced they would soon be following the astronauts into space…just in more comfortable surroundings, with an in-flight magazine and a beverage service, at the very least…