[meteorite-list] Moon Memorabilia Auction AD

From: cdtucson at cox.net <*cdtucson_at_meteoritecentral.com*> Date: Sat, 9 Jul 2011 17:24:27 -0400 Message-ID: <20110709172427.8CY58.138815.imail_at_fed1rmwml39> · cdtucson_at_meteoritecentral.com

--

"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for dinner. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote". 

---- JoshuaTreeMuseum <joshuatreemuseum at embarqmail.com> wrote: 
> We'll see how this one goes:
> 
> http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/10/science/space/10moon.html?_r=1&hp
> 
> Shreds of Moon History on the Block
> By DOUGLAS QUENQUA
> Published: July 9, 2011
>   a.. Recommend
>   b.. Twitter
>   c.. Sign In to E-Mail
>   d.. Print
>   e..
>   Reprints
>   a.. ShareClose
>     a.. Linkedin
>     b.. Digg
>     c.. MySpace
>     d.. Permalink
>     e..
> 
> It was two weeks before the liftoff of the Apollo 11 mission when Thomas 
> Moser's boss walked into his office at NASA and announced, "We're putting a 
> flag on the moon."
> 
> Enlarge This Image
> 
> Goldberg Coins and Collectibles
> At bottom, remnants of the American flag that went to the moon, signed by 
> Mr. Armstrong, are expected to bring $100,000 at auction.
> 
> Enlarge This Image
> 
> NASA
> Buzz Aldrin in a photograph taken by Neil Armstrong.
> 
> Mr. Moser, then a 30-year-old mechanical engineer, was put in charge of 
> designing a flag mechanism that could not only fit into the lunar module and 
> survive the flight, but also make the flag appear to fly on the windless 
> moon.
> 
> His solution involved two sections of a staff, a telescoping tube and a 
> nylon flag bought at a local housing goods store (Sears, he thinks). But in 
> order for the flag to fit the staff, its edges needed to be trimmed. "They 
> were throwing it all in the trash," Mr. Moser recalled of the remnants in a 
> recent interview, "so I picked it up out of the trash can, mounted it and 
> had Neil Armstrong sign it."
> 
> Forty-two years later, Mr. Moser is auctioning off those flag remnants. The 
> expected selling price: $100,000.
> 
> "There's so much attention on the manned space program right now that the 
> timing may be good," Mr. Moser said, referring to the final launching of the 
> space shuttle Atlantis on Friday.
> 
> Mr. Moser's flag shreds are the star lot of an extensive space memorabilia 
> auction being held in Beverly Hills, Calif., on Sunday. Other notable items 
> include the astronaut Deke Slayton's handwritten training notes from the 
> Mercury program and dozens of heat shields, crew patches and other ephemera 
> that once transcended earthly bounds.
> 
> For collectors, the remnants of the space flag are "comparable to a Betsy 
> Ross flag or the flag flying over the port in Baltimore in 1812," said 
> Michael Orenstein, who is overseeing the auction for Goldberg Coins and 
> Collectibles. Two days before the auction, online pre-bidding for the lot 
> had reached $49,999.
> 
> But trading in space nostalgia can be a dangerous business. In June, 
> investigators confiscated a triangular nub of transparent tape an eighth of 
> an inch wide from an auction house in St. Louis because it contained tiny 
> particles of moon dust. Selling moon rocks, no matter how small, is illegal, 
> as is selling NASA property that the agency has not willingly disposed of.
> 
> Mr. Orenstein said that his auction contained no moon particles, and that 
> all NASA property in the sale had been discarded by the agency long ago. A 
> NASA spokesman declined to comment on the status of the items.
> 
> There are also economic concerns. The collectibles market tends to follow 
> the overall economy; when money is tight, even avid collectors are less 
> likely to spend money on memorabilia. But Mr. Orenstein said he believed 
> that rule did not apply to one-of-a-kind items like the flag remnants. "Just 
> give me two flag collectors who can't live without it," he said.
> 
> As for Mr. Moser, he does not plan to attend the auction, but he was at 
> Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Friday to watch the Atlantis lift off. "I 
> spent most of my life developing the shuttle," said Mr. Moser, who retired 
> from NASA in 1989 after 25 years with the agency. "I was there from sketch 
> pad to launch pad."
> 
> A version of this article appeared in print on July 10, 2011, on page A15 of 
> the New York edition with the headline: Shreds of History, Going on the 
> Block.
> 
> -------------------------
> Phil Whitmer 
> 
> ______________________________________________
> Visit the Archives at http://www.meteoritecentral.com/mailing-list-archives.html
> Meteorite-list mailing list
> Meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com
> http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list