rocket mail

June 8, 1959: They'll Never Complain About Slow Postal Service Again

The missile was fired shortly before noon from a launcher aboard the submarine USS Barbero, cruising off the coast of Virginia. Twenty-two minutes after launch, the missile struck its target at the Naval Auxiliary Air Station in Mayport, Florida.

The mail was retrieved, sorted and routed in the usual way from a post office in nearby Jacksonville.

Rocket mail, which has a whiff of theatrics to it, still exists and still has advocates around the world. Since the end of the cold war, a number of surplus missiles culled from the Soviet nuclear arsenal have been used to fire mail around Russia, including a few experimental launches from nuclear subs.