Neil Armstrong stashed a bag of keepsakes from his Apollo 11 moon mission in his closet, and the artifacts weren't discovered until a few months after the astronaut’s 2012 death.
The Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum announced this week that Armstrong’s wife, Carol Armstrong, sent a photo to the museum of all the items spread out on her carpet.
“Needless to say, for a curator of a collection of space artifacts, it is hard to imagine anything more exciting,” wrote Aaron Needell, a curator in the Space History Department, who added that he contacted the
experts at the Apollo Lunar Surface Journal website to help him log the items.
By examining photos, the ALSJ crew determined that all the items, which to anyone’s knowledge hadn’t been referred to or seen in the 45 years since Armstrong went to the moon, were from the Lunar Module Eagle, Needell said.
Since the discovery of the white bag with its array of space items, the
ALSJ website has created a detailed update about Armstrong’s souvenirs.
“These artifacts are among the very few Apollo 11 flown items brought back from Tranquility Base and, thus, are of priceless historical value,” ALSJ wrote. “Of utmost importance is the 16mm movie camera with its 10mm lens. The camera was mounted behind the right forward window of the lunar module and was used to film the final phase of the descent to the lunar surface, the landing, as well as Neil Armstrong's and Buzz Aldrin's activities on the lunar surface including taking the first samples of lunar soil and planting the U.S. flag.”
Needell said it’s believed Armstrong referred to the bag and its contents on transcripts, saying just as they prepared to jettison the Eagle, “You know, that — that one’s just a bunch of trash that we want to take back — LM parts, odds and ends, and it won’t stay closed by itself. We’ll have to figure something out for it.”
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