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1
USSR 1957 Sputnik 1 Stamp
The stamp that starts the whole theme. The Soviet post issued this 40-kopek design about a month after the October 4, 1957 launch, and Yevgeny Gundobin kept it beautifully simple: a deep blue globe circled by the thin white line of Sputnik's orbit, with the launch date printed in the corner.
It is the natural first page of a space album, and it gives collectors two things to chase: the original November issue and the commemorative overprint released on December 28, 1957.
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USSR 1961 First Man in Space Stamps (Yuri Gagarin)
Yuri Gagarin flew on April 12, 1961, and the Soviet post had commemorative stamps on sale the very next day, with a second Gagarin stamp following on April 14. The set carries the slogan of the moment, a man of the Land of Soviets in space, across bold poster-style scenes: Gagarin's portrait, a rocket climbing past the Kremlin's Spassky Tower and a red rocket streaking over Moscow.
For a space-race collection, this is the counterpart to every American first that follows, and the speed of its release is part of the story.
3
US 1962 4c Project Mercury Stamp
Few stamps have a better backstory. The Post Office printed this 4-cent design in secret and shipped it in sealed packets to postmasters in 305 locations, to be opened only if John Glenn's flight succeeded. At 3:30 p.m. on February 20, 1962, after Friendship 7 came home, the word went out and the stamp went on sale that same day.
The dark blue and yellow design shows the capsule above the curve of the Earth, captioned U.S. Man in Space. With almost 290 million printed, it is one of the easiest landmarks to add.
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USSR 1963 Valentina Tereshkova Vostok 6 Stamps
The first woman in space got her own stamps within days of her flight. This June 1963 design by I. L. Levin sets Valentina Tereshkova's portrait beside the date of the Vostok 6 launch, June 16, 1963, and a line calling her the world's first woman cosmonaut, with the spacecraft's orbit sweeping across a teal sky.
It is the Soviet milestone that belongs on the same page as Glenn's Project Mercury stamp, and its two-tone printing makes it one of the most elegant designs in this list.
5
USSR 1965 Voskhod 2 First Spacewalk Stamp
Alexei Leonov left Voskhod 2 on March 18, 1965, and became the first person to walk in space. This wide 10-kopek Soviet stamp shows him in an orange suit tumbling away from the spacecraft on his tether, with the date of the walk printed in the panel beside him.
Its long, horizontal format gives the scene room to breathe, and it makes an ideal opposite page to the 1967 American Space Twins, which show Ed White's walk less than three months later.
6
US 1967 5c Accomplishments in Space Stamps
Paul Calle drew one astronaut floating beside the Gemini 4 capsule and split the scene across two stamps, giving the Post Office its first attached pair with a continuous design. Collectors know them as the Space Twins.
The artwork was based on photographs of Ed White's spacewalk, down to the gold-covered tether he used to pull himself around. Because the picture only works as a whole, this is a pair to keep joined rather than separate.
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US 1969 6c Apollo 8 Moon Orbit Stamp
The stamp that brought Earthrise to the mailbox. Issued in Houston on May 5, 1969, it reproduces the photograph the Apollo 8 crew took as they orbited the Moon over Christmas 1968, the Earth hanging above the gray lunar horizon.
It is the quiet companion to the Moon landing airmail issued four months later: one stamp shows where humans were going, the other shows what they saw looking back. With more than 187 million printed, it is an easy and rewarding addition.
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US 1969 10c First Man on the Moon Airmail Stamp
The centerpiece of most space collections, and the only stamp here whose printing tool has been to the Moon: the engraved master die for this 10-cent airmail flew with the Apollo 11 crew. The stamp itself went on sale on September 9, 1969, showing an astronaut stepping down from the lander with Earth hanging in the black sky.
More than 152 million were printed, so this is about story rather than rarity. Paul Calle's design is crisp and still reads clearly at stamp size, which is why it anchors so many albums.
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US 1971 8c Decade of Space Achievement Stamps
Robert McCall's attached pair marks the first decade of American spaceflight and was issued on August 2, 1971, the day the Apollo 15 crew left the Moon. The left stamp shows a landing craft on the lunar surface under a blazing sun with Earth beyond; the right shows two astronauts aboard the Lunar Roving Vehicle, which carried that crew about 17 miles across the surface.
Set beside the 1969 airmail, it shows how quickly exploration moved from first footsteps to driving across the Moon.
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US 1975 10c Apollo-Soyuz Stamps
A rare piece of Cold War cooperation on paper. The United States and the Soviet Union each issued stamps for their first joint space venture, the American pair going on sale on July 15, 1975, and the two artists split the story between them: Robert McCall painted the Apollo and Soyuz craft after link-up, and Soviet artist Anatoly Aksamit painted them before it.
Mount the American pair beside the Soviet joint issue and the docking is told across two countries' stamps, which no other item here can do.
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US 1981 18c Space Achievement Stamps
One block of eight 18-cent stamps that bridges two eras. Issued on May 21, 1981, its designs range across the Moon walk, the Columbia space shuttle, Skylab and the telescopes and satellites that came with them.
It is the most efficient way to fill a page: where earlier issues celebrate a single flight, this block links the Apollo years to the shuttle program in one sweep, and it stays together nicely as a mounted block.
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US 1991 29c Space Exploration Stamps
The most famous caption in space philately. This set of ten 29-cent stamps, issued October 1, 1991, in honor of Voyager 2 passing Neptune, pairs each planet with a spacecraft that explored it, except Pluto, which is labeled Not Yet Explored.
That line became a rallying point for NASA's New Horizons team, who placed a copy of the stamp aboard the spacecraft before it launched on January 19, 2006. It traveled more than 3 billion miles to Pluto and holds the Guinness World Records title for the farthest distance traveled by a postage stamp.
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US 2000 33c Hubble Space Telescope Images Stamps
Five stamps that put Hubble's pictures, rather than the telescope itself, on the envelope. Issued April 10, 2000, in Greenbelt, Maryland, they reproduce images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, including the Eagle Nebula, and honor Edwin Hubble, the astronomer the telescope is named after.
For a collection that wants astronomy as well as spaceflight, this pane brings in the color and depth of deep space that engraved rocket stamps never could.
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US 2016 Pluto Explored! Forever Stamps
The answer to the 1991 stamp, issued May 31, 2016, at the World Stamp Show in New York City. One stamp shows Pluto as New Horizons revealed it in the first up-close images anyone had seen of the dwarf planet; the other shows the spacecraft that took them.
Mount it next to the Not Yet Explored stamp and two pages tell a 25-year story, from an empty question mark at the edge of the solar system to a world with a face.
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US 2019 1969: First Moon Landing Forever Stamps
For the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11, the Postal Service went back to the photographs. One stamp uses Neil Armstrong's picture of Buzz Aldrin in his spacesuit on the lunar surface; the other shows the Moon, photographed in 2010 by Gregory H. Revera from his home in Madison, Alabama, with a small dot marking where Eagle landed in the Sea of Tranquility.
Issued July 19, 2019, at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex, the pair is the natural companion to the 1969 airmail: painted art then, the real pictures now.
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Royal Mail 2020 Visions of the Universe Stamps
This British set looks outward rather than at rockets. Issued in February 2020 for the Royal Astronomical Society's 200th anniversary, its eight stamps illustrate discoveries such as the Cat's Eye Nebula, the geysers of Enceladus, Jupiter's auroras and Comet 67P, in vivid illustrations by Robert Ball.
It suits collectors who want modern astronomy in the album, and it turns hard ideas like gravitational lensing, pulsars and black holes into pictures that make a striking page.
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US 2022 James Webb Space Telescope Forever Stamp
The newest landmark here. Webb launched on December 25, 2021, and the Postal Service issued this stamp on September 8, 2022, with a dedication at the Smithsonian National Postal Museum in Washington. Derry Noyes designed it from existing art by James Vaughan: a digitally created view of the telescope against a dazzling field of stars.
Sold in panes of 20, it brings the current era of space astronomy into a collection and closes the story that Sputnik's blue globe opened 65 years earlier.
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