“In my own view, the important achievement of Apollo was a demonstration that humanity is not forever chained to this planet, and our visions go rather further than that, and our opportunities are unlimited.” – Neil A. Armstrong, Commander of Apollo 11
Ask anyone over the age of 60 to name a significant memory and many will say they can recall watching the Apollo 11 moon landing on July 16, 1969, when NASA Astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins made Space Age history. An estimated 650 million people tuned in to watch and listen as Armstrong proclaimed from the surface of the Moon, “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” It was a moment of national pride and represented America’s dominance in space after losing the “first-into-space” race to Russia.
Following the launch of Sputnik, America’s desire to be first in space with a manned spacecraft and the first to bring men to the Moon was further fueled by such popular 1960s TV shows as “My Favorite Martian,” “Lost in Space,” “Star Trek” and “The Jetsons,” which inspired us to imagine what and who else was out there in what we were learning was an ever-expanding universe. Everyone, it seemed, had space fever, believing the Moon to be just the tip of the celestial iceberg.
Back on earth, our pioneer astronauts were treated as national heroes, celebrated with ticker-tape parades, talk show interviews, state dinners, and visits with heads of state in more than 20 countries around the world. They were the ‘best of the best’ and the best of us, fearlessly putting their lives on the line to advance our knowledge of space and establish the Moon as America’s next frontier.
As the space program grew in popularity and future orbital and landing missions were scheduled, the desire among collectors to own something tangible associated with NASA’s various space programs created a new collectibles market for anything associated with a mission or program. Especially in demand and of value were (and still are) items that traveled into space or have been on the Moon, with the provenance to prove it. While you might think this niche market would see few genuine artifacts in circulation, that is not necessarily the case despite NASA’s best efforts early on to not “commercialize” the program in that way.
In the early years of the space program, starting with the Gemini mission, each astronaut was allowed to take a Personal Preference Kit (PPKs) into space with them. These small bags, with their contents pre-approved by NASA management and limited in size and weight (up to 5 lbs), were supposed to contain personal items of “little commercial value”; “mementos” the astronauts wanted to be flown as souvenirs of the mission. Astronauts were required to submit a manifest listing the items to be held in their PPKs as well as the ultimate recipients of the items, sixty days prior to their launch date.
Wally Schirra’s kit on the Gemini 6A mission contained his Navy wings, hunting license, and many medals, flags, and patches. In a special arrangement with the United States Air Force Museum, Neil Armstrong’s PPK famously contained pieces of wood and fabric from the 1903 Wright Flyer, the first plane to achieve powered flight. As part of a joint project with the United States Forest Service, about 400 to 500 seeds of Douglas fir, loblolly pine, redwood, American sycamore, and sweetgum trees were stored in small containers in Stuart Roosa’s PPK during the Apollo 14 mission.
Over the years that followed that first Gemini mission, packing the PPK with mementos was a private and personal perk of the job but the PPK turned commercial in the Summer of 1972 when it came to light that the astronauts of Apollo 15—David Scott, Alfred Worden, and James Irwin— were paid/bribed $7k each by West German stamp dealer Hermann Sieger to carry about 400 unauthorized postal covers (FDC) into space and to the Moon’s surface on the Lunar Module Falcon.
Scott arranged to have the covers postmarked on the morning of the Apollo 15 launch on July 26, 1971. They were packaged for space and brought to him as he prepared for liftoff, and carried to the Moon in a leg pocket of his space suit; however, they were not included on the list of the personal items he was taking into space against NASA regulations. The covers spent July 30 to August 2 on the Moon inside Falcon. After splashdown, aboard the USS Okinawa, the Apollo 15 recovery ship, the astronauts purchased twin eight-cent stamps and affixed them to these covers. The covers were then canceled and date-stamped August 7, 1971, their landing date, in the shipboard post office. The astronauts later autographed these covers while flying from Hawaii to Houston on Aug. 31, 1971. One hundred of these covers carried the handwritten notation, “Landed at Hadley moon July 30, 1971. Dave Scott, Jim Irwin”, and the additional legend – “This is to certify that this cover was onboard the Falcon at the Hadley Apennine, Moon, July 30-August 2, 1971” typed on their backs and signed by a notary public.
When these Sieger covers came on to the commercial philately market in Europe the following year and news of their existence and sale reached the United States, the reputations of both NASA and the astronauts were in jeopardy. While Scott, Worden, and Irwin returned the money they were paid for the Sieger covers, the scandal brought NASA in front of Congress and the three were removed from the roster as backup crew members for Apollo 17 and never returned to Space.
At the time, the Sieger scandal was a public black eye for NASA but it also showed the demand for Space Age collectibles and their escalating values at auction, which has only accelerated in the past few years. Selections from Neil Armstrong’s Private Collection of Apollo 11 flown memorabilia realized $2.34 million at a Heritage auction in 2019, and most recently, Buzz Aldrin’s jacket worn on his first mission to the moon fetched $2.77 million.
This July was the 55th Anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon; a reminder of how far we have come and how much is left to explore and collect as we continue to look to imagine a world beyond our own.
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