Neil Armstrong’s moon dust bag sold for USD 1.5 million at New York auction

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Moneycontrol News 

An extremely rare bag used by NASA astronaut Neil Armstrong to collect the first samples of dust from the moon has been sold for USD 1.8 million at an auction in New York.

The bag was auctioned on the occasion of the 48th anniversary of the first time astronauts set foot on the moon in 1957. The dust bag was expected to fetch around USD 2-4 million.

It was bought by a person who bid by telephone and did not wish to be named publicly as told to Reuters by Sotheby's.

During the lunar mission on the Apollo 11, Armstrong had collected 500grams of material finer than one centimetre and 12 rock fragments from five different locations in a region known as “Sea of Tranquility”.

The auction followed by a recent court ruling in the US which allowed this sample bag to be an artefact in private hands. All other equipment from the Apollo 11 mission is housed in the National Collections at the Smithsonian.

The lunar dust bag was the most highly auctioned moon memorabilia that included, among other things, the Apollo 13 flight plan annotated by its crew and a spacesuit worn by US astronaut Gus Grissom.

Scientific tests at NASA had revealed the bag to be moon dust and a number printed inside the bag matched to the number of a “Contingency Sample Return Decontamination Bag” listed in the Apollo 11 Stowage List.

“Reflecting the enduring and universal fascination with space, the USD 1.8 million achieved for the Apollo 11 lunar sample bag and strong prices for objects related to other missions were driven by over 500 participants from dozens of countries with many buyers new to Sotheby’s,” said Cassandra Hatton, vice president and senior specialist of Sotheby’s Books and Manuscripts Department in New York as per multiple media reports.