50 years after Apollo 11: Christie's to auction key items from space mission

If you were a kid in the 90s then you'd remember when owning a small piece of the moon rock (even a fake), would make you an instant celebrity in school. Now those 90s kids have a chance at owning a piece of history from Apollo 11's moon mission 50 years ago. 

Christie’s through its "One Giant Leap: Celebrating Space Exploration 50 Years After Apollo 11", will auction nearly 200 artifacts from NASA missions of the 60s and 70s including the Gemini and Apollo programs.

The sale’s highlight is the Apollo 11 Lunar Module Timeline Book which is estimated to go for around $7- 9 million, and was used by Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin to navigate the lunar module Eagle onto the surface of the moon in July 1969.

The book includes traces of moon dust and almost 150 handwritten annotations including Lunar Module Eagle’s coordinates on the lunar surface within moments of landing, marking the first writing by a human being on an extraterrestrial body. Because future manned missions will be more fully digitised, there will likely never be created a more significant document of space exploration history.

Additional lots include a Large United States Flag Flown Aboard Apollo 10 (estimated at $25,000 – 35,000), a Camera Lens and Dust Brush Used on the Lunar Surface During the Apollo 14 Mission (estimate: $125,000– 175,000), and a Large Lunar Landscape Planning Chart Dating from May 1971 (estimate: $40,000 – 60,000).

The chart is inscribed with mission details by a member of every Apollo landing crew and is the most outstanding example of its kind produced for NASA during the Apollo program.

One Giant Leap will be on public view at Christie’s New York until July 17.

Christie’s is simultaneously offering The Moon and Beyond: Meteorites From The Stifler Collection, an online sale of rocks from space. Open for bidding until July 26, the sale includes the ‘Massive Triangular Specimen of the Moon’ (estimated at $100,000 – $130,000), as well as a ‘Rare Lunar Sphere’ (estimated at $35,000- $55,000). The ‘Massive Triangular Specimen’ is a triangularly-shaped end piece that reveals both interior and exterior of Moon rock.

Christina Geiger, Head of Books & Manuscripts, explains: “It’s an absolute thrill to offer the chance for bidders to take home a piece of space exploration history, whether it is an object that has been to the Moon and back or the charts used to navigate there. These objects stand as witnesses to the early years of space exploration and to one of the most glorious adventures in human history.”