Hemant Mehta, the Friendly Atheist, posted a video about stamps that feature religion in his blog post Religion and Freethinkers on Postage Stamps
I did some research and posted the following in response to that video.
I don’t know what Madeline was talking about.
“Experiment P” is listed in the flight log of Apollo 8 as “Experiment P-1.” The text on the stamp was not in the log. It was just the first prayer led from space, which is bad in its own way. We spent millions of dollars for someone to go up and pray near the moon. It was not a scripture quote.
See http://history.nasa.gov/ap08fj/13day4_orbits123.htm
The relevant part is between 074:45:50 and 074:50:42.
The mission cost $310 million in 1968. The mission lasted 6 days and 3 hours. Experiment P-1 lasted just under 5 minutes. That prayer cost approximately $175,737. http://www.westegg.com/inflation says that is $1,036,686.00 when adjusted for inflation to 2007. I don’t know for sure, but I’d say that is probably the most expensive single prayer in history.
