A Fragment of Apollo 11; Flown Hatch Plug
Kennedy Space Center: NASA, 1969. First Edition. Composition hatch plug, flown to the Moon and back on Apollo 11, the first manned lunar landing. 23mm long x 12.5mm diameter. An actual piece of the Columbia command module, removed after the spacecraft was recovered aboard USS Hornet in the South Pacific on July 24, 1969. As Dick Williamson writes, "This plug is one of several that are removed from certain areas of the spacecraft in order to gain access to deactivate systems/functions." Ex Dick Williamson, NASA motion picture photographer from 1964 to 1986, present for recovery operations on Gemini and Apollos 10, 11, 12, 13, and 15, and the man entrusted with escorting the first Moon rocks from Apollo 11 back to NASA. With Williamson's signed note of provenance. Item #1309
Apollo 11's Columbia is now in the Smithsonian, intact as a `national relic. The hatch plugs and some screws were among the only components of the ship itself that had to be removed, and they are the pieces that could be expected to remain in the hands of collectors today. If you wait a few years, regardless of price, you are going to need the Dark Side of the Force to acquire an authentic piece of the spacecraft from this specific mission. Setting Armstrong (a civilian) and Aldrin (a Colonel) on the Moon and bringing them back alive while Collins orbited above was the most ambitious and complex of all human achievements so far. In 1,000 years, it may be the only event anyone remembers to associate with the 20th century. This was the United States at its most sensational, and America is still the best promise. For the record: Apollo 1 caught fire. Apollos 2 through 6 were unmanned tests and Apollo 7 flew in Earth orbit. Apollo 8 orbited the Moon and was the first manned ride on the Saturn V rocket. Apollos 9 and 10 also orbited and tested the landing craft, but it was Apollo 11, launched July 16, 1969, that fulfilled the pledge, landed Armstrong and Aldrin on the surface, and brought all three men safely home. A mythic remnant with a failsafe future.
Price: $8,500.00