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Apollo 13 Mission Manual Pages To Be Auctioned

Posted by kdawson on from the we-have-a-problem dept.

astroengine writes "On April 13 — the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 13 accident — Bonhams in New York City will auction off pages from the Apollo 13 mission manual, with handwritten notes by flight commander Jim Lovell. I'm thinking the chances of actually outbidding a rich space enthusiast are slim to none, but having a chance at owning a piece of spaceflight history should be popular nonetheless." Here is an item listing page at Bonhams for one of those pages, which, as Gizmodo notes, saved three astronauts' lives.

3 of 96 comments (clear)

  1. Why are these not being given to a Museum? by vtechpilot · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Gee if only we had a government body charged with the preservation of important historical documents. Oh wait! We do! I don't understand why these items aren't going to the National Archives. Its not like they are gonna raise enough money for a rocket or anything. The Smithsonian Institution would be a better home than some private collection.

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    Slashdot is an anagram for Has Dolts, and I am Dolt number 468543
    1. Re:Why are these not being given to a Museum? by vtechpilot · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I hope you are being ironic but I can't tell. If you're serious then it requires rebuttal. If a museum doesn't have interesting artifacts, then they don't attract visitors. If they don't attract visitors they don't have admissions income (or in the case of free museums have a hard time justifying the public funding they receive). Without income, they can't acquire interesting artifacts. It is a catch 22. If museums had to be run as a business and pull themselves up by their bootstraps, we wouldn't have any museums. All the great museums owe their existence to gift or public grant: The Louvre, The British Museum, The Smithsonian, American Museum of Natural History.

      If these items are currently NASA property then transferring an asset from one government body to another has zero cost and the museum should not have to pay to acquire them. If these are not NASA property then there are one of two possibilities. 1) They are stolen US Government property. 2) NASA was wrong to transfer them to private ownership in the first place.

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      Slashdot is an anagram for Has Dolts, and I am Dolt number 468543
  2. These belong in the National Archives/Smithsonian by Genom · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Is it wrong that I'm a little dismayed at this? IMHO these belong in the National Archives, or at the Smithsonian's Air & Space museum, not in the hands of the highest bidder. They're a part of our space program's history, and deserve to be preserved.