Stamp Daddy

What does a son follow in when a dad has left no footprints?

Therein the puzzle facing Alexander Volkov, son of Sergei — who is the focus of this week's objet d'eBay. The 34 year old cosmonaut son will enter space sixteen years after his father made the trip — going up a citizen of the Soviet Union and returning to earth as a Russian, although still the pride of Donetsk, which issued this philatelic mashup in 1998 to celebrate his 50th birthday.

Father Volkov was up in space three times, a "Hero of the Soviet Union," and the son has no stated plan to outdo him: "“I just want to perform as well as my father, because there are things that he has done that nobody has been able to copy.”

But the 34-year-old "boy"will accomplish at least one thing his cosmonaut father couldn't. The current flight plan is for him to return to earth with Richard Garriott — wealthy video gaming space tourist — and son of Owen, a U.S. Skylab and space shuttle astronaut in the 1970s-80s.

Could the sons earn stamps as well?

** "I can lick pa, but he's a stamp, of course." **