Buzz Aldrin’s historic Apollo 11 ‘Moon Jacket’ with an NFT could fetch $2 million at ‘Geek Week’
This interior view of the Apollo 11 Lunar Module shows astronaut Edwin E. Aldrin, Jr., lunar module … [+]
53 years ago today, on July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first humans to walk on the moon during the historic Apollo 11 mission.
Now 92, Aldrin will auction off his personal collection of space memorabilia on July 26 at Sotheby’s in New York.
Overall jacket worn by Aldrin on the journey to the moon and back
The highlight of Sotheby’s Geek Week will be Aldrin’s Apollo 11 flight jacket, which has a pre-sale estimate of $1 million to $2 million.
Armstrong and command module pilot Michael Collins’ flight jackets are at the Smithsonian, along with all three crew members’ A7L pressure suits.
The Buzz Aldrin: American Icon auction will include spaceflight artifacts, personal items and other items from Aldrin’s private collection, with the best lots related to Gemini XII (where he performed a spacewalk) and Apollo 11 missions.
A broken switch and pen that holds a special place in Apollo 11 history is also expected to fetch between $1 million and $2 million.
The story goes that as Armstrong and Aldrin prepared to lift off from the moon to return to the command module in orbit, a circuit breaker had tripped on the instrument panel. Aldrin used a marker to ignite the engine.
The switch that nearly ended the lives of the Apollo 11 crew and the pen that saved them
In a first auction, both objects will come with a MIRAImage NFT, a unique digital identifier linked to its physical object using new microscopic 3D scanning technology. NFT is characterized by the MIRA of the Ethereum blockchain, thus recording micron-level details as well as the object’s metadata and provenance information for future proof of authenticity.
The NFT proves that the object was acquired from Buzz Aldrin, which is critically important for spaceflight artifacts, which can only be legally owned if acquired from an astronaut, according to Sotherby’s.
Aldrin will also put flight documents from the Apollo 11 mission up for sale. The Apollo 11 LM Systems Activation Checklist includes notes made by Aldrin while on the Moon. It is expected to bring in $150,000 to $250,000.
Apollo 11 LM Systems Activation Checklist, flown to the lunar surface and intended to be jettisoned … [+]
“After careful consideration, the time felt right to share with the world these artifacts, which for many are symbols of a historic moment, but for me have always been personal mementos of a life dedicated to science and exploration,” Aldrin said. “From the jacket I wore on the trip to the moon and back, to the famous broken switch that almost ended our lives, and the pen that saved us, to various items we used to complete the mission, I hope this collection provides some insight into what it’s been like to be Buzz Aldrin.”
The Apollo 11 memorabilia will be the highlight of Sotheby’s Geek Week, which from July 20 to 27 also includes the second largest part of the moon on Earth, a piece of the famous asteroid Vesta and a rare meteorite that fell under one of the largest meteorites . showers sometime on February 12, 1947 in Siberia.
Wish you clear skies and big eyes.
