Space history auction

On Wednesday, Bonhams New York is auctioning and insanely amazing collection of artifacts from the history of space exploration. The 400 lots including such choice items as an Apollo 11 Lunar Surface Star Chart (image above right), a Mercury life raft, and a dehydrated cocoa drink carried on Apollo 13. From Bonhams:

From the Apollo 16 mission comes one of the most highly estimated lots in the sale- a cuff mounted check list (image above left) used on the surface of the moon. Presented to backup Commander Fred Haise by astronaut Charles M. Duke after his Apollo 16 flight, the checklist was used during the second and third lunar surface exploration periods by Duke. It was exposed to the lunar environment for over 12 hours and had lunar dust embedded in to several sheets as Duke turned each leaf with his dust coated lunar glove. The checklist's authenticity is further evidenced by a photo of Duke wearing this check list while touching a large lunar boulder. Considering its direct contact with the moon and the lingering proof of its trip in the form of moon dust, the coveted lot is estimated at $200/300,000. This lot is being sold to benefit the non-profit Infinity Science Center, located near NASA’s Stennis Space Center in Mississippi.

An item directly from Apollo 13 Astronaut Fred Haise and prized for its actual time spent on the moon, is a lunar surface dust brush (image top) . It was used during two Extra Vehicular Activities (EVAs), or Moonwalks, of the Apollo 14 mission to remove moon dust from the lenses of film and TV cameras. Apollo 14 landed at the area intended for Apollo 13, prior to the oxygen tank explosion that aborted that mission. Given to Haise by astronauts Alan Shepard, Stuart Roosa, and Edgar Mitchell the lot carries an estimate of $125/175,000.

Also expected to inspire fierce bidding is a flight vehicle altitude hand controller assembly unit that was part of the Apollo 15 Lunar Module. Considering that Lunar Modules were never designed to return to earth this lot's appearance on the market is extraordinarily rare. With an estimate of $200/300,000 this is true cause for excitement amongst collectors.

Space History auction

• [Anonymous]

  At first, I imagined a liferaft made of Hg, which seems even worse than a lead baloon.

• [Anonymous]

  Interesting TED talk by George Dyson on the top secret Orion project which investigated sending people to Saturn via a nuclear bomb-propelled ship:

  http://www.ted.com/talks/george_dyson_on_project_orion.html

• [Blackhat]

  Hmm, the Ghostbusters ECTO-1 auction article currently has 14 comments while this article has none… This seems to say something about the interests of boingboing readers, I’m just not sure what…

• [Beverly Stayart]

  The authentication and rarity of this collection should attract a lot of serious bidders at this auction.

• [Anonymous]

  Don’t know what to tell ya, blackhat. I have lots of space memorabilia, but I can’t afford to buy any (I got my stuff the hard way). So until you said something, I had no comment to make here… I just appreciated the link in silence, as it were.

• [Falcon_Seven]

  If only I was a multi-millionaire…

  I love the NASA patch with ‘F. Haise’ below it. It seems to have been unceremoniously ‘liberated’ from his flight suit with a pair of scissors. Most of the lots seem to come from Maxime “Max” A. Faget’s own personal collection of memorabilia.