[meteorite-list] Moon Memorabilia Auction + Contact info

From: Yinan Wang <veomega_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Sat, 9 Jul 2011 15:30:24 -0500
Message-ID: <CALpO9Hd=__Gx-ga3MVEh=fdX4_5wKE=uu7AU_SrT25ufp+EKbg_at_mail.gmail.com>

Here we go again!

Alright, anyone who wants to write a letter to the editor, follow
these instructions and email letters at nytimes.com
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Also, here's useful contact information if you have problems with
something printed:

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- Yinan

On Sat, Jul 9, 2011 at 3:09 PM, 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
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>
> 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
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Received on Sat 09 Jul 2011 04:30:24 PM PDT