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Space history is for sale. New York hosts Sotheby’s auction this week. July 15. Expect flags. Flags from cold space. Even a rag used to wipe a window on a moon lander. It looks wild on the gallery page. But it’s real.
The pen that kept them alive
July 20, 1919? No. 1969.
Armstrong and Aldrin were out there. Gathering rocks. Dust. About three hours of surface time. They climbed back into the Lunar Module. Ready for the long ride home. Then Aldrin swung his life support pack. Smack. The circuit breaker switch snapped off.
Bad timing.
If that switch had failed later? Dead in space. All three of them. Aldrin reacted fast. He jammed a pen into the gap. It became a switch. A makeshift fix that saved the mission.
Armstrong later told ABC it was luck. Good luck.
“He could have broken something minor. But he hit the breaker for the Service Module engine. The one that gets us into orbit,” he said. “Just insurance.”
Nice to have insurance. When you need it.
A flag from the void
Jim McDivitt commanded Gemini IV. June 1965.
This was the second crewed Gemini mission. And the first time an American walked in space. Edward White did it. Twenty-one minutes outside. No tether to hold him, really, just a handhold. He floated.
McDivitt snapped the photo. This silk flag flew with them. Stars and stripes. Signed by McDivitt at the bottom.
It hangs in memory.
Dirty windows in zero-G
November 1966 brings us to Gemini XII. Buzz Aldrin is the man. He went out for a spacewalk. Found yellow goo on the window. Weird stuff.
He wiped it off. With a nylon tab cloth.
NASA cut the rag up. Lab tested the residue. Turned out to be propellant exhaust. From the Titan II rocket that launched them. Just chemical smog from liftoff.
Aldrin kept a piece of that nylon tab. A souvenir of the mess.
Heat and the honeycomb
Heat shields matter. In 1966 or tomorrow, fire kills you.
This plug protected a screw. One of fifty-nine bolts holding the heatshield to Apollo 8’s command module. December 1968 mission. The first time humans saw the moon up close. The Earthrise photo? Taken then. Bill Anders behind the lens.
Coming home meant re-entry.
The command module hit the atmosphere nose-up. No wait. Aft-first. Bottom up. Friction burns everything. NASA built a honeycomb steel structure to eat that heat. The bolts needed covering. Plugs. These little discs kept the fasteners safe from the inferno of descent.
Diplomacy in orbit
America won the race. July 20, 1979. Joke.
July 19, 69. Armstrong steps out. USA wins. But Buzz Aldrin wanted more than a victory lap.
He brought a kit. Personal preference items. In there sat a US flag. A Texas state flag. A New Jersey flag. And a USSR flag.
Soviet Union. The enemy, technically.
Aldrin saw it as a bridge. A gesture. He carried it in the Command Module Columbia. Down to the lunar surface.
“This provenance letter certifies the flight of the Soviet Flag,” his letter reads. “An act of diplomacy.”
He wanted history to see a human achievement. Not just a national one.
Did it work? Hard to say.
Gordon’s glove
This isn’t battle gear. Likely a training piece.
An A7-L glove made for Gordon Cooper. Mercury Seven veteran. The last man to fly Mercury-Atlas-9. He spent a day in orbit. First American to do so.
The glove maker is International Latex Corporation. Now ILC Dover. They make suits for everyone going up. Every astronaut. Each suit costs a million bucks. Five thousand hours to stitch together.
Coop wore one. As backup commander for Apollo 10 too. This glove is a reminder of that weight. Literally and financially.
The dog
Charlie Brown’s kid had a dog. Snoopy.
He joined NASA in 1978? No, 68. Manned Flight Awareness mascot. He became a safety symbol. If the Snoopy patch flipped, the engine was working right.
Dr. George Mueller ran the office. Apollo. Skylab. Early Shuttle work. He guided the ship.
This pin flew around the moon. Came back to Mueller. Snoopy went with the crew. In spirit mostly. But officially, yes.
The jacket
Al Worden flew Apollo 15 in 71.
His jacket wore out. Fabric degrades. Worden missed it. Or loved it. So in 2013, he started Still the Right Stuff.
They made replicas. Museum quality. Based on the originals. This specific jacket belongs to Buzz Aldrin. From his own closet.
It bears the Apollo 11 patch. And the NASA meatball logo.
The company doesn’t make these anymore. The line is done. But this jacket survives. A piece of vintage cool in a post-heroic era.
