Some collections on manned space exploration begin with the early rocket mail.

We stand on the threshold of rocket mail."

Once inhabited, the island was the scene of unsuccessful experiments with rocket mail, since commemorated in two films.

Rocket mail is the delivery of mail by rocket or missile.

Rocket mail had its more or less official start in France, during the Siege of Paris by the Prussians.

Some methods of airmail proved ineffective, however, including the United States Postal Service's experiment with rocket mail.

Rocket mail got its real impetus from Friedrich Schmiedl, who helped develop rockets in Austria and Germany.

In July 1934 Zucker made two unsuccessful attempts at firing rocket mail between Scarp and Harris.

In 1936 there were plans to use rocket mail across Niagara Falls, and labels were produced to mark the mail, but the flights never took place.

Even "serious" stamp collectors acknowledge the collectability of first-day covers, or special commemorative covers, or rocket mail.

The collection of philatelic material ("stamps") used for (and depicting) rocket mail is a specialist branch of aerophilately known as astrophilately.

Scarp was the site of an experiment by German inventor Gerhard Zucker to deliver the island's post by rocket mail.

Cuba also experimented with rocket mail, and in 1939 released the only postage stamp issued for use on such letters, listed in the Scott catalogue as C31.

A fictionalised account of the rocket mail experiment was used as the basis of a 2002 film, The Rocket Post, filmed on Taransay.

In 1992 the Indian government issued a stamp to celebrate the centenary of Smith's birth, calling him "the originator of rocket mail in India".

A month later, the first ground launching carried 19 souvenir letters numbered and signed by Schmiedl, and it is these that constitute the first philatelic rocket mail.

Stephen Hector Taylor-Smith '11 (the originator of rocket mail in India, and memorialised on a postage stamp)

The story is very loosely based on experiments in 1934 by the German inventor Gerhard Zucker to provide a postal service to the island of Scarp by rocket mail.

Friedrich Schmiedl launched the first rocket mail (V-7, Experimental Rocket 7) with 102 pieces of mail between Schöckl and St. Radegund, Austria.

Examples include rocket mail, dating from as early as the 1928, and mail actually carried on space flights, a practice that began with Project Apollo missions, and has continued since then.

Since the end of the Cold War, Russia has made a few experimental rocket mail launches from nuclear submarines in the Sea of Okhotsk toward western Russia, using now-surplus missiles.

While most of the study of airmail assumes transport by fixed-wing aircraft, the fields of balloon mail, dirigible mail, zeppelin mail, missile mail, and rocket mail are active subspecialties.

Other topics for consideration are: USPS rocket mail from 1936 or 1959 launches, Russian submarine-launched rocket mail, or reusable launch vehicle mail.

Before man reaches the moon your mail will be delivered within hours from New York to California, to England, to India or to Australia by guided missiles.... We stand on the threshold of rocket mail.

Technologists like Robert Zubrin, of Mars Society fame, think that rocket mail, or at least ultra-elite business package delivery, may become commercially viable with the development of fully reusable launch systems, particularly single-stage to orbit vehicles.