After Neil Armstrong took “one giant leap for mankind”, mission controllers had to repeatedly remind him that his top priority was to scoop up dust from the moon’s surface for scientists to study, rather than just taking photographs.
Now, some of the rock he collected on July 20, 1969, is to be auctioned, the first time that Nasa-authenticated Apollo 11 moon dust has been offered for sale. It is expected to fetch about $1 million (£758,000) when it goes under the hammer next month.
The moon dust endured a long journey even after it completed its 250,000-mile trip to Earth. The bag containing the sticky powder was lost by Nasa and resurfaced in the garage of Max Ary, director of the Cosmosphere space museum in Kansas, in 2003. Ary secretly sold some of the museum’s artefacts and was jailed for theft, money laundering and fraud two years later.
After his conviction, American government officials seized his space memorabilia and sold it to cover his fines. They did not recognise the bag as being from the Apollo mission, and it was bought at an online auction by Nancy Lee Carlson, a lawyer from Illinois, for $995.
Carlson, a space enthusiast, sent the bag and its contents to Nasa for authentication, but the space agency said she could not have it back as it should not have been sold in the first place. Carlson sued to get it returned.
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The bag, stripped of its moon dust by Nasa scientists using double-sided carbon tape, was sold at auction at Sotheby’s five years ago for $1.8 million (£1.4 million).
Nasa was eventually made to return five samples of the moon dust, on carbon tape mounted on aluminium discs, to Carlson after another lawsuit. They are expected to fetch $800,000-$1.2 million (£607,000- £910,500) when it comes up for auction at Bonhams in New York on April 13. Carlson is planning to donate some of the proceeds to scientific charities.
“This is really beyond a space collectible,” said Adam Stackhouse, Bonhams’ fine books and manuscripts specialist, who is overseeing the sale. “It transcends the space market. It is the very first sample [of moon dust] ... and represents this amazing achievement.”
When Armstrong became the first person to set foot on the moon in 1969, his first task was to fill a Teflon bag with dust. If there was an emergency and the crew had to quickly evacuate, scientists would still be able to study objects from the lunar surface.
However, mission controllers in Houston had to tell him to stop taking photographs because, according to a biographer, “Armstrong was so intent on taking a few pictures that he neglected to scoop up the contingency sample of lunar dust”. Nasa “did not want to get all the way to the moon and then not be able to bring back any lunar samples for scientific study”. He eventually stored it in a strap-on pocket on his left thigh.
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Other items in the sale include a signed photograph of Armstrong in the moon’s Sea of Tranquility, valued at up to $3,500, and an original fragment from the rocket that launched the Soviet Sputnik-1 satellite, which has a guide price of up to $120,000.
