apollo 11 mission parts pricelist

In support of the six Apollo missions that made it to the Moon between 1968 and 1972, a few auction houses have cobbled together some pretty impressive collections of lunar memorabilia. Sotheby’s has a

"It was fantastic. Obviously there is a lot of nostalgia and energy right now focused on the history of Apollo 11," said Bobby Livingston, executive vice president of RR Auction in Boston.

Livingston said the auction house received very strong prices for the Apollo 11 goods. The merchandise wasn"t limited to Apollo 11 pieces, though there were around 150 items that came from that mission specifically.

The highest bid went to a glossysigned 8-by-10 photo of Neil Armstrong just before he stepped onto the moon from NASA"s original video transmission. The final bid on the photo was $52,247.50, including the buyer"s premium. The pre-auction estimate was $12,000.

EBay has a wide selection of Apollo 11 paraphernalia, including a shard of "Genuine Gold Kapton Foil Flown to the Moon - NASA -with COA" foil for a much lesser list price than the auction items at $14.99.

Ahead of the 50th anniversary, major brands are celebrating with Apollo 11-themed merchandise, too. Krispy Kreme has launched a promotion, "One small bite for man... one giant leap for doughnut-kind," with the opportunity for customers to try one free at select locations Saturday.

The holy grail for collectors of space memorabilia is anything that was flown to the moon during the six Apollo missions and unloaded onto the celestial crust. It would be junk in any other context; vintage scientific equipment lucky enough to be projected at escape velocity to a barren destination 234,000 miles away. What makes those spare parts invaluable, explains Robert Pearlman, editor of the space-hobbyist consumer guide CollectSPACE (and an avid lunar antiquary himself), is when they’ve been stained by lunar dust — physical proof of a journey that still seems impossible.

Then you enter the Wild West of merchandise that remained on Earth — various appendages of the Apollo program, and its lesser-known progenitors Project Mercury and Project Gemini. (The value basement, says Pearlman, are the items mined out of the latter-day Skylab and Space Shuttle ventures throughout the ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s. Space collectors, like most Americans, prefer to remember NASA when it was at its apex.)

But memorabilia from the Apollo 11 mission reigns supreme. The maiden voyage to the moon is the one most fixed in the American storybook, so it is no surprise that the trickle of mementos from that flight demand a higher price than anything that’s come before or since.

July 20th marks Apollo 11’s 50th anniversary, and Sotheby’s is celebrating on that day with a specialized auction full of material from the space program. The marquee item? Three bundles of magnetic videotape, filmed at Mission Control in Houston, Texas, which represent the “earliest, sharpest, and most accurate” documentation of the broadcasts beamed out by Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin as they took their first steps on the moon. The estimated market value is between $1 million and $2 million, but the original owner was a NASA intern, who bought the tapes at a government surplus auction for $217.77 in 1976. Cassandra Hatton, a senior specialist at Sotheby’s who focuses on science history, explains that the field is new enough, and volatile enough, that prices are able to jump 10,000 percent in about 40 years. This is unusual.

Space hobbyists have been around for the length of the space race, but Pearlman explains that the first formal high-society space auctions were hosted in Beverly Hills in the early ’90s by a (now-defunct) house called Superior Galleries. It was a biannual event, drawing interest from all over the country, and it gathered its merchandise by either cosigning items directly from other collectors or asking former astronauts to put their personal effects on sale. The market tends to spike whenever people are talking about space again: 1995, after the release of Apollo 13; 1999, during the 30th anniversary of Apollo 11, and so on. By 2010, major auction companies like Christie’s, Sotheby’s, and Bonhams were organizing their own space galas, each focused on a period of 15 years between the mid-’60s and ’70s — Earth’s brief love affair with the moon.

In the ’70s, the administration reached an agreement with the Smithsonian, effectively giving the museum the first right of refusal on all the major artifacts that NASA no longer needs. That means that Apollo’s big-ticket items — the garments that Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin wore on the lunar surface, the specimens they brought back home — are in government hands, and are available for display at museums across the country.

The remainder, says Pearlman, were the “nuts and bolts” of the space program — knickknacks that carry plenty of historical relevance but don’t make nearly as much sense behind a glass pane on a museum floor. (A good example is an Apollo 11 flight manual, which is expected to fetch around $9 million at a Christie’s auction this week.) A shocking number of those artifacts were plucked out of the government surplus system, just like the multimillion-dollar videotape on sale at Sotheby’s.

The other legal way Apollo material hits consumer channels is via the men who lived it. NASA outfitted astronauts with what’s called a personal preference kit, or PPK — a small bag to stow keepsakes during their missions. After they retired and returned to Earth, that material was donated, or handed down to their kids, or, as the space auction market started percolating, sold at an enormous profit margin.

These sales, in particular, did not sit well with NASA. The agency could never squabble with the material purchased legally out of surplus stores, but it did file grievance with what it saw as former employees flipping government property to make a buck. Take the case of astronaut Edgar Mitchell, who brought a camera he kept from the Apollo 14 campaign to Bonhams in 2011. The government said it had no record of transferring that camera to Mitchell’s private estate, so after a legal entanglement, Mitchell was forced to sacrifice his keepsake back to his former boss.

Naturally, “United States v. Former Astronaut Edgar Mitchell” looks pretty ugly to the average American. Mitchell had kept that camera for 40 years before attempting to cash out, and the pettiness on the municipal side looked a lot like NASA eating its own young. That controversy forced the Obama administration into action; in 2012, the president signed a bill into law guaranteeing the “full ownership rights” of most anything the crew members of the Apollo, Mercury, and Gemini missions still had in their possession — records or not. Hatton says she was thankful for the legislation, because it purged a lot of the guesswork out of space appraisal.

“The legislation specifically says not moon rocks, not spacesuits, but any other expendable items they might have kept. Checklists, and other types of hardware, that’s theirs. They’re allowed to sell it,” she says. “It’s so helpful, because I don’t have to make some sort of judgment call. ‘This flew on a mission. Okay! Did it come from an astronaut? No? Then how did you get it? You didn’t obtain this in a legal way.”

Still, a layer of tension remains when you’re bartering national treasures. The most recent, and perhaps most famous, example surfaced in 2016. A woman named Nancy Carlson bought a yellowed bag that made it to the surface of the moon during Apollo 11. It was labeled “Lunar Sample Return,” and it was previously stuffed with moon rocks that the crew scrounged up during the two hours they spent walking around the landing site.

The specifics of Carlson’s purchase are laughable; she took it home for $995 at an auction in Texas hosted by the US Marshals Service, who were selling off the forfeited artifacts of Max Ary — who was convicted for the theft and reselling of space-related items in 2006. The bag itself was worth a king’s ransom; flown to outer space on Apollo 11, handled by Neil Armstrong himself, and — yes — stained with moon dust.

It’s the sort of development that scares Michelle Hanlon, the co-founder of For All Moonkind, a nonprofit dedicated to the preservation of the lunar expeditions. She says she doesn’t have anything against private collectors, but maintains the position that anything that returned home from Apollo 11 should be classified as a public artifact — treated with tenderness and exempt from commerce. “A lot of what we’re looking for is memorialization versus preservation,” she says. “What do we need to hold in our hand forever? What do we need to make sure we don’t forget that this happened?”

An auction house is selling memorabilia and flown artifacts from the Apollo 11 mission just in time for the 50th anniversary of the first moon landing.

The 70 mm film contains “126 of the most iconic images from thefirst lunar-landing mission,” according to a statement from the auction house, RR Auction. Some of the images were taken by astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin themselves.

The film was acquired by Terry Slezak, a member of the decontamination team at the lunar receiving lab at NASA’s Manned Spacecraft Center, according to the auction house. Slezak was in charge of processing the film taken on the Apollo moon landings.

Other items up for auction include Armstrong’s Robbins Medal, which on the mission with him. The medal, which was produced by NASA for each Apollo mission, sold for $45,078. Also sold was a leather log book from Air Force One that was signed by all three Apollo 11 astronauts on August 13, 1969. The log book went for $8,264.

The auction closed on Thursday evening. The moon, meanwhile, hasn’t been touched by humans since December 1972, when the astronauts with Apollo 17 left its surface.

The Apollo 11 spacecraft is most well-known in space exploration history for being the first manned spacecraft to land on another celestial body. It carried three American astronauts to the Earth"s satellite in 1969: Neil Armstrong, Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin and Michael Collins. In fact, yesterday marks 45 years since Armstrong and Aldrin stepped out of the ship and onto the moon.

The massive, American-built spacecraft -- by which we mean "all three parts of Apollo 11 together as one ship" -- weighed just under 100,000 pounds. A single Saturn V (pronounced Saturn "five") rocket carried the hulk of metal (and three human beings) into space, and staged detonations enabled that rocket to propel Apollo 11 into lunar orbit.

After eight days -- from takeoff at Kennedy Space Center in Florida to splashdown in the north Pacific Ocean near Wake Island -- Apollo 11"s command module (where the astronauts lived while aboard) returned to Earth. The lunar module ("Eagle") was left in lunar orbit and is believed to have crashed into the surface in the following years.

Apollo 11"s mission to bring the first human beings to Earth"s moon was the effective end of the so-called space race between the Soviet Union and the United States. After years of both superpowers dumping resources into said race, Armstrong"s "giant leap for mankind" definitively declared victory for the United States.

More importantly, the Apollo 11 landing signaled the opening of the next frontier for human exploration. Without the Apollo program, Elon Musk"s SpaceX and Richard Branson"s Virgin Galactic might not exist. The International Space Station, launched as a joint effort between 15 partner nations (including the US and the post-USSR breakup Russian Federation), might not exist. Heck, Star Wars might not exist. And we"re quite partial to Star Wars.

It"s not much of an argument given that it"s been proven wrong over and over, but a group of folks claim that the Apollo 11 moon landing was faked on a soundstage. Those same folks argue that all subsequent moon landings were faked as well.

Per the Apollo 11 landing specifically, the argument is that certain photos taken on the moon show shadows that don"t go in the same direction. So the logic goes: Multiple shadow directions, multiple sources of light (which is to say, "more sources of light than just the sun"). Mythbusters took on this theory in a 2008 episode, seen in part below:

And who wouldn"t? The moon, and space travel in general, has fascinated human beings for centuries. For more on the Apollo 11 mission specifically, we suggest you check out Tom Wolfe"s excellent book on NASA"s ambitious plan to put human beings on the moon: That exists as well, and it"s also really good!

For a less bombastic approach to the Apollo 11 landing, we suggest How Stuff Works" excellent piece on lunar landings, as well as Stuff You Should Know"s podcast about the same subject. There"s kind of a lot of material out there on the Apollo 11 landing considering it"s one of humanity"s greatest achievements, including books from the astronauts themselves and countless tales from NASA scientists involved in the project. We"re barely scratching the surface here, so we suggest digging in on the history and branching out from there. You could spend a lifetime just studying the Saturn V rockets that propelled many American spacecraft into orbit.

[Image credit: NASA (Buzz Aldrin on the moon, moon landing video, Apollo 11 launch and lunar module); Alexis Santos/Engadget (SpaceX); "Mythbusters" S6/Ep. 11; The Ladd Company (theatrical trailer for The Right Stuff)]

Three days after leaving the Moon, on July 24, 1969, they splashed down in Earth"s oceans, successfully completing their return trip. But during Apollo 11"s return to Earth, a serious anomaly occurred: one that went undetected until after the crew returned to Earth. Uncovered by Nancy Atkinson in her new book, Eight Years to the Moon, this anomaly could have led to a disastrous ending for astronauts Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins. Here"s the story you"ve never heard.

This NASA image was taken on July 16, 1969, and shows some of the thousands of people who camped out... [+]on beaches and roads adjacent to the Kennedy Space Center to watch the Apollo 11 mission Liftoff aboard the Saturn V rocket. Four days later, humanity would take our first footsteps on another world. Four days after that, the astronauts successfully returned to Earth, but that was not a foregone conclusion. (NASA / AFP / Getty Images)Getty

According to our records, the flight plan of Apollo 11 went off without a hitch. Chosen as the mission to fulfill then-President Kennedy"s goal of performing a crewed lunar landing and successful return to Earth, the timeline appeared to go exactly as planned.

On July 16, 1969, the Saturn V rocket responsible for propelling Apollo 11 to the Moon successfully launched from Cape Kennedy. (Modern-day Cape Canaveral.)

Only July 17, the first thrust maneuver using Apollo"s Service Propulsion System (SPS) was made, course-correcting for the journey to the Moon. The launch and this one corrective burn were so successful that the other three scheduled SPS maneuvers were not even needed.

This artist"s concept shows the Command Module undergoing re-entry in 5000 °F heat. The Apollo... [+]Command/Service Module was used for the Apollo program which landed astronauts on the Moon between 1969 and 1972. An ablative heat shield on the outside of the Command Module protected the capsule from the heat of re-entry (from space into Earth"s atmosphere), which is sufficient to melt most metals. During re-entry, the heat shield charred and melted away, absorbing and carrying away the intense heat in the process. (Heritage Space/Heritage Images/Getty Images)Getty

Successful re-entries after a journey to the Moon had already taken place aboard NASA"s Apollo 8 and Apollo 10 missions, and Apollo 11 was expected to follow the same procedures. At the danger of becoming complacent, this step, in many ways, already seemed like old hat to many of those staffing the Apollo 11 mission.

This schematic drawing shows the stages in the return from a lunar landing mission. The Lunar Module... [+]takes off from the Moon and docks with the Command and Service Module. The Command Module then separates from the Service Module, which jettisons its fuel and accelerates away. The Command Module then re-enters the Earth"s atmosphere, before finally parachuting down to land in the ocean. (SSPL/Getty Images)Getty

Although there are no known photographs of the Apollo 11 Command Module descending towards... [+]splashdown in the Pacific Ocean, all of the crewed Apollo missions ended in similar fashion: with the Command Module"s heat shield protecting the astronauts during the early stages of re-entry, and a parachute deploying to slow the final stages of descent to a manageable speed. Shown here, Apollo 14 is about to splash down in the oceans, similar to the prior missions such as Apollo 11. (SSPL/Getty Images)Getty

Both the Command Module and the Service Module from Apollo 11 followed the same re-entry trajectory,... [+]which could have proved fatal to the astronauts aboard the Command Module if a collision of any type had occurred. It was only through luck that such a catastrophe was avoided.NASA

The crew of Apollo 11 — Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins, and Buzz Aldrin — in the Mobile Quarantine... [+]Facility after returning from the surface of the Moon. The U.S.S. Hornet successfully recovered the astronauts from the Command Module after splashdown, where the crew was greeted by President Nixon, among others. (MPI/Getty Images)Getty

There was a fault in how the Service Module was configured to jettison its remaining fuel: a problem that was later discovered to have occurred aboard the prior Apollo 8 and Apollo 10 missions as well. Instead of a series of thrusters firing to move the Service Module away from the Command Module, shifting it to a different trajectory and eliminating the possibility of a collision, the way the thrusters actually fired put the entire mission at risk.

In the aftermath of Apollo 11, investigators determined that the proper procedure for avoiding contact would be to properly time the firing of both the roll jets and the Minus X jets, which would lead to a 0% probability of contact between the two spacecrafts. This might seem like an extremely small point — to have the Minus X jets cut out after a certain amount of time firing as well as the roll jets — but you must remember that the spacecraft is full of moving parts.

If, for example, the fuel were to slosh around after the Service Module and the Command Module separated, that could lead to a certain window of uncertainty in the resultant trajectory. Without implementing the correct procedure for firing the various jets implemented, the safe return of the Apollo 11 astronauts would have to come down to luck.

This NASA picture taken on April 17, 1970, shows the Service Module (codenamed "Odyssey") from the... [+]Apollo 13 mission. The Service Module was jettisoned from the Command Module early, and the damage is clearly visible on the right side. This was to be the third crewed Apollo mission to land on the Moon, but was aborted due to the onboard explosion. Thankfully, the flaw in the jettison controller had been fixed, and the Service Module posed no risk to the astronaut-carrying Command Module from Apollo 13 onwards. (AFP/Getty Images)Getty

Fortunately for everyone, they did get lucky. During the technical debriefing in the aftermath of Apollo 11, the fly-by of the Service Module past the Command Module was noted by Buzz Aldrin, who also reported on the Service Module"s rotation, which was far in excess of the design parameters. Engineer Gary Johnson hand-drew schematics for rewiring the Apollo Service Module"s jettison controller, and the changes were made just after the next flight: Apollo 12.

Those first four crewed trips to the Moon — Apollo 8, 10, 11 and 12 — could have all ended in potential disaster. If the Service Module had collided with the Command Module, a re-entry disaster similar to Space Shuttle Columbia could have occurred just as the USA was taking the conclusive steps of the Space Race.

View of the Apollo 11 capsule floating on the water after splashing down upon its return to Earth on... [+]July 24, 1969. If the Command Module and the Service Module had collided or interacted in any sort of substantial, unplanned-for way, the return of the first moonwalkers could have been as disastrous as the Space Shuttle Columbia"s final flight. (CBS Photo Archive/Getty Images)Getty

Atkinson"s book, Eight Years to the Moon, comes highly recommended by me if you"re interested in the behind-the-scenes details and rarely-told stories from the Apollo era. Inside, you"ll find many additional details about this event, including interview snippets with Gary Johnson himself.

This statistic shows the estimated cost of each individual Apollo mission, from Apollo 7 in 1968 to the final mission, Apollo 17, in 1970. Apollo 7 received less than fifty percent of all other missions, receiving just 145 million dollars compared to all others which received between 300 and 450 million dollars. Apollo 11, the first mission to successfully land man on the moon, cost approximately 355 million dollars, and the final mission, Apollo 17, cost approximately 450 million dollars. After the Apollo 13 incident, the amount of money invested in each mission jumped from 375 million for Apollo 13, to 400 and 445 million for Apollo 14 and 15; this was because of the increased investment in safety procedures and mechanisms to prevent further accidents from taking place.Read moreExpenditure of NASA"s Apollo Missions from 1968 to1972(million of US dollars)tablecolumn chartMissionMillions of US dollarsApollo 17450

The Planetary Society. (July 16, 2019). Expenditure of NASA"s Apollo Missions from 1968 to1972 (million of US dollars) [Graph]. In Statista. Retrieved March 03, 2023, from https://www.statista.com/statistics/1028322/total-cost-apollo-missions/

The Planetary Society. "Expenditure of NASA"s Apollo Missions from 1968 to1972 (million of US dollars)." Chart. July 16, 2019. Statista. Accessed March 03, 2023. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1028322/total-cost-apollo-missions/

The Planetary Society. (2019). Expenditure of NASA"s Apollo Missions from 1968 to1972 (million of US dollars). Statista. Statista Inc.. Accessed: March 03, 2023. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1028322/total-cost-apollo-missions/

The Planetary Society. "Expenditure of Nasa"s Apollo Missions from 1968 To1972 (Million of Us Dollars)." Statista, Statista Inc., 16 Jul 2019, https://www.statista.com/statistics/1028322/total-cost-apollo-missions/

The Planetary Society, Expenditure of NASA"s Apollo Missions from 1968 to1972 (million of US dollars) Statista, https://www.statista.com/statistics/1028322/total-cost-apollo-missions/ (last visited March 03, 2023)

Expenditure of NASA"s Apollo Missions from 1968 to1972 (million of US dollars) [Graph], The Planetary Society, July 16, 2019. [Online]. Available: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1028322/total-cost-apollo-missions/

"We"ve set out to produce the highest quality reproduction of the Apollo 11 manual that was used by Mission Control, astronauts and supporting personnel," wrote Reproduction IO, the Melbourne, Australia-based team behind the Apollo 11 Flight Plan Re-issue, on the crowdfunding website.

The project, which began July 6, soared past its $11,275 (15,000 AUD) goal on Saturday (July 16), the 47th anniversary of the launch of the Apollo 11 mission. [Apollo 11: The Historic Moon Landing in Pictures]

"The trajectory parameters used in this Flight Plan are for July 16, 1969 launch," the original plan"s introduction read. "This document schedules the [spacecraft] operations and crew activities to fulfill, when possible, the test objectives defined in the mission requirements [for a] lunar landing."

After the mission, the original copies of the Apollo 11flight plan became mementos for those who worked on the lunar landing. In recent years, those same documents have sold for hundreds, if not thousands of dollars, and those are just the copies that were used on the ground.

Single pages that were flown on board Apollo 11 have sold for tens of thousands dollars. One of those pages is being auctioned Wednesday (July 20) by Bonhams in New York, where it is expected to sell for $18,000 to $25,000.

"We have been disappointed with [their] quality," explained Reproduction IO. "They are only available as eBooks, use incorrect fonts and have used automated tools to convert graphics to vector illustrations." [NASA"s 17 Apollo Moon Missions in Pictures]

The first 50 backers were able to reserve their copy of the reproduced Apollo 11 Flight Plan for $66 (US) each. Those pledging now can get one copy for $74, two for $142, three for $217 or 10 (the "Mission Commander" bundle) for $710 (the prices are approximate, converted from AUD).

Today, there is a lot of excited talk about going to the moon(opens in new tab). Again. Shining brightly in our sky, it calls to us like a celestial siren, just as it always has done. NASA is still debating whether it should send astronauts straight to Mars(opens in new tab), bypassing the moon altogether, or only go to Mars after a number of successful precursor missions to Earth"s natural satellite.

With all this going on, it"s important to remember we"ve already been to the moon. True, it happened a long time ago but the Apollo program(opens in new tab) led to missions that were a spectacular success and represented a golden age of exploration. It was a time when enormous rockets, gleaming white, thundered into the sky, roaring like dragons, carrying brave explorers across the gulf of space, traveling much further than we could possibly go today.

Between 1969 and 1972, six Apollo missions took teams of three astronauts across over 250 miles (400 kilometers) of space to the moon, set two of them down on its surface, and brought them all home safely again. A seventh mission, Apollo 13(opens in new tab), famously failed to land on the moon, but the astronauts survived a flight around the moon. Today, those daring missions are as fascinating as ever.

Many people have asked why astronomers don"t turn the Hubble Space Telescope(opens in new tab) towards the moon to take photos of the Apollo spacecraft. But not even the Hubble could see a four-meter wide Apollo spacecraft on the moon.

To see Apollo hardware, you have to go to the moon, and then either land next to the actual spacecraft, as the rovers might do later this year or next, or look down on them from orbit. The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter(opens in new tab) (LRO), has done just that, and has taken amazing images of the Apollo landing sites from orbit showing not just the spacecraft themselves, but the lunar rovers parked where they were left, and even the trails of bootprints left in the lunar dust by the explorers.

So, if you were hoping to see Apollo hardware on the moon through your telescope, you"ve no chance, sadly. However, you can see the Apollo landing sites(opens in new tab) if your telescope is good enough—and we"re going to tell you how, and where, to find them.

First, you need to know the general areas of the landing sites, and the key to doing that is to think of the moon as the face of a clock, with 12 o"clock at the top and 6 o"clock at the bottom. You can then find the rough areas of each mission"s landing site quite easily, using the charts included in this guide.

Finding the Apollo 11(opens in new tab) landing site where Neil Armstrong(opens in new tab) took his "one small step" off the Eagle"s ladder is quite easy.

One of the moon"s most impressive craters will guide you towards the Apollo 12(opens in new tab) landing site in the Ocean of Storms(opens in new tab).

Just find the huge crater Copernicus(opens in new tab), and place it at the bottom of your inverted field of view. To Copernicus" upper right you"ll see the smaller crater Reinhold and beyond it the crater Lansberg. Apollo 12"s landing site lies to the upper left of the 3.1-kilometer-deep Lansberg.

The Apollo 14(opens in new tab) landing site can be found close to one of the most impressive and most photographed "crater chains" on the moon"s surface.

Once you have found craters Arzachel, Alphonsus, and Ptolemaeus, jump across to the right of Ptolemaeus, where you will find the smaller ring-like crater, Parry. The Apollo 14 landing site is just to the lower right of this crater.

The lunar module Falcon touched down in July 1971 in the most stunning location any Apollo mission visited—close to a meandering valley in the shadow of the Apennine mountains.

To find it, look for the break in the curve of the mountains, to the left of the crater Archimedes, past Autolycus and Aristillus. Apollo 15(opens in new tab) landed above and to the left of these craters, in the foothills of the mountains.

If you place the crater Theophilus to the left of your eyepiece"s field of view, you"ll see a smaller, sharper-rimmed crater to its right. This is Kant, and Apollo 16 set down in the rugged highlands to its lower right.

To find it, put the shallow crater Posidonius at the bottom of your field of view. Follow the shoreline "up" past the semi-circular Le Monnier bay. Continue upwards and you"ll find the Apollo 17(opens in new tab) landing site.Today"s best Telescopes deals

It’s been nearly 50 years since NASA put a man on the moon but many of the technologies invented for the groundbreaking Apollo space program are still used in our lives on Earth today.

The Dustbuster was only made possible thanks to Black & Decker’s work with NASA on developing a lightweight and power-efficient tool for the Apollo Lunar Surface Drill. The same motor design used on the 1969 moon landing was then used to create the Dustbuster.

The silvery space blanket often worn by marathon runners and emergency patients was also born from the Apollo 11 mission. The lightweight reflective sheet was created by NASA when it needed a material that would insulate astronauts and the spacecraft while taking up little space, according to website Compare The Market.

The shock absorbers found on both San Francisco’s Oakland Bay Bridge and London’s Millennium Bridge were also born out of the Apollo missions. Taylor Devices Inc. created the devices for NASA’s Apollo launchpad and still sell them today as seismic shock absorbers for structures around the world.

Fireproof material used in firefighter uniforms was also made possible thanks to the Apollo 11 mission. After a cabin fire killed all three crew on the Apollo 1 mission, NASA developed a suit made of flexible, fireproof fiber that can withstand extreme heat.

Sneaker company Avia also turned to NASA’s suit when wanting to create a shock-absorbing sole that didn’t break down under pressure. Their patented Compression Chamber midsole created in 1990 was invented with help from a NASA Apollo engineer.

1. Relive history at the Kennedy Space Center.On July 16 at 9:32 a.m. (exactly 50 years after the mission"s launch), a “flashback” event at the Space Center will take visitors through the liftoff sequence in real time by showcasing original footage — all from an area that offers a clear view of the Apollo 11 launch pad. Guests can also step into a recreation of a 1969 American living room to experience what it was like to watch from home.

Also on display: a Saturn V rocket — the type that launched Apollo 11, 36 stories tall and 6.2 million pounds, one of only three left in the world — and the Astrovan that transported the astronauts to the launch pad. The celebration continues on July 20 with a “moon landing” commemoration and on July 24 (the date astronauts Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins safely came back to Earth) with a “splashdown” party. (Regular admission prices apply: $57 for adults, $47 for children.)

2. Celebrate in Neil Armstrong"s hometown. The Apollo 11 commander hailed from Wapakoneta, Ohio. From July 17 to 21, the 2019 Summer Moon Festival will take place at several locations throughout the town, including the Armstrong Air & Space Museum. Highlights include Run to the Moon races; presentations by NASA astronauts; interactive science experiments; a bike tour of 12, 25, 40, or 62 miles; the world"s largest Moon Pie; a Moon Menu Trail with space-themed dishes at restaurants in town; and a “Wink at the Moon” evening concert. The concert"s name is a nod to this request from the Armstrong family, upon his death in 2012: “The next time you walk outside on a clear night and see the moon smiling down at you, think of Neil Armstrong and give him a wink.” (Free)

4. See Neil Armstrong"s Apollo 11 space suit. It will go back on display for the first time in 13 years at the Smithsonian"s National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C., as part of a three-day celebration on the National Mall. (Admission is free)

Too far from the nation"s capital? No worries: Statues created using the Smithsonian"s 3-D scan of the suit will be on display at 15 baseball parks throughout the country this summer, from New York to Chicago to Seattle. The suits will feature an interactive component that allows fans to scan parts of the suit and access additional information about the Apollo 11 mission. Some of the ballparks will also host “Apollo Night” on July 5, featuring Apollo activities and stargazing.

5. Imagine history being made from Mission Control. “Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed.” Armstrong"s first words after landing on the moon were radioed to Mission Control in Houston, where workers erupted in cheers. The controller radioed back, “You got a bunch of guys about to turn blue. We"re breathing again.” In honor of the 50th anniversary, the control room at Space Center Houston, a national historic landmark, has been restored to its 1969 appearance, complete with vintage furniture. Guests can step back in time as they take a NASA Tram Tour and watch the original consoles operate. (Timed tickets, $69.96 for $35.95 for children)

6. Meet an astronaut at Apollopalooza. From July 13 to 20, the Wings Over the Rockies Air & Space Museum in Denver, Colo., will host Apollopalooza. On the agenda: a launch day breakfast, educational STEM activities, movie screenings, a presentation by Apollo 11 flight director Gene Kranz, and an evening with Apollo 17 astronaut and former U.S. Sen. Harrison Schmitt of New Mexico. The week culminates in a 1969-themed part with an all-American BBQ buffet, live music, and a viewing of the moon landing — timed to the minute it happened (8:56 p.m. MST). (Daily passes $27.95 for adults, $22.95 for children; event with Harrison Schmitt, $45 per person)

7. See the moon in photographs. “By the Light of the Silvery Moon: A Century of Lunar Photographs” will open at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., on July 14 and run through Jan. 5. The exhibit of 50 works will feature a selection of photographs from the unmanned Ranger, Surveyor and Lunar Orbiter missions that led up to Apollo 11, as well as glass stereographs taken on the moon by Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin. (Admission is free.)

At the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, from July 3 through Sept. 22, “Apollo"s Muse: The Moon in the Age of Photography” will feature photographs from the dawn of photography through the present, plus drawings, prints, paintings, films, astronomical instruments and space-flown cameras. (Admission: $25 for adults, $17 for seniors, $12 for students, free for children under 12.) In a related event, teens ages 15 to 18 can attend a free mixed-media art workshop from July 8 to 12.

A documentary titled Apollo 11, which includes never-before-seen footage of the moon landing mission, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2019 and was shown in Imax theaters in March. It"s now being shown in select theaters across the country and is also available on Blu-Ray, DVD, digital and on demand.

8. Run a 5K at the Bell Museum. This venue in St. Paul, Minn., is hosting a yearlong celebration titled “Year of Apollo: The Moon and Beyond.” Highlights include Moon Yoga on June 1, a Super Moon Pajama Party on June 19 (parents and grandparents welcome), and the Apollo Anniversary and Cosmic 5K on July 20. The race kicks off at 8 a.m., followed by a kids’ fun run at 9:15 a.m. Also on hand: games, crafts, lunar samples, NASA artifacts and learning activities. (Museum admission is $12 for adults, $10 for seniors, $9 for youth, and free for children under 3; extra fee for the 5K.)

9. Dine with Apollo alumni at the Cradle of Aviation Museum.From 1961 to 1972, employees of Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corp., based on Long Island, N.Y., designed, built and tested the Apollo Lunar Module that successfully landed 12 men on the moon. The Cradle of Aviation Museum in Garden City, N.Y., will celebrate that contribution at the Apollo at 50 Anniversary Dinner. Special guests include Apollo astronauts Fred Haise (Apollo 13), Walt Cunningham (Apollo 7), and Rusty Schweickart (Apollo 9), plus two Apollo flight directors. (Tickets are $275 and benefit museum programs.) The museum"s Apollo at 50 Moon Fest on July 20 will feature virtual reality experiences, model rocket launches and a photo op in a re-created 1969 living room ($20 for adults, $15 for children), plus a champagne dinner with 1960s music and dancing and a community countdown of the moon landing. ($125 per person)

10. See the Apollo 11 command module in a traveling exhibit. Apollo 11 artifacts will be on display in the “Destination Moon: The Apollo 11 Mission” exhibit developed by the Smithsonian. It has been to Houston, St. Louis and Pittsburgh already, and will be at the Museum of Flight near Seattle until Sept. 2 before returning to a new permanent gallery at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. In addition to more than 20 historic objects, such as the helmet and gloves worn by Buzz Aldrin while on the surface of the moon, the exhibit features the Apollo 11 command module Columbia — the only portion of the historic spacecraft to return from that momentous mission. Visitors can see the inside of the module through an interactive 3-D tour. (Tickets are $10 in Seattle and free at the Air and Space Museum.)

11. Meet Buzz Aldrin at the Reagan Library.He"ll be on hand on July 13 at the “black tie, white spacesuit” 50th Anniversary Gala at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, Calif. So will Apollo astronauts Walt Cunningham and Charlie Duke and actor Gary Sinise, who played astronaut Ken Mattingly in the Apollo 13 film from 1995, directed by Ron Howard. Guests will dine under the retired Air Force One that served seven U.S. presidents, bid on Apollo 11 memorabilia in a silent auction and have a photo op with Aldrin. (Tickets are $1,000 and benefit Aldrin"s new nonprofit.)

Apollo 11 was a critical step forward for the nascent manned space flight program in America, a repurposing of nuclear weapons technology and a show of geopolitical dominance, a program rooted in the ineffable “right stuff” of the seemingly fearless naval test pilots who served as guinea pigs for the first flights into space.

In years to come, the first women and people of color to become NASA astronauts would be launched into space, the idea of private commercial space travel would become increasingly real, and one more step in the journey of Apollo 11 would be taken, again from the Pacific Northwest.

Blue Origin, one of a small number of private space-travel efforts, is the work of Amazon CEO and Seattle-area resident Jeff Bezos. Along with Elon Musk’s SpaceX, Blue Origin received no shortage of publicity since its founding in 2001. What has received less publicity is Bezos’ involvement with the artifacts left behind by Apollo 11, and the powerful Saturn V rockets that launched Armstrong, Aldrin, Collins and the astronauts who followed them into space.

Like Dr. James Joki’s backpacks and part of the lunar module, all abandoned on the moon during the journey of Apollo 11, the F-1 rocket engines that launched the spacecraft for NASA’s Apollo program were also dropped en route. They crashed into the Atlantic Ocean, where they fell 14,000 feet below the surface. They’d stay there for over 40 years.

But in 2010, Bezos, who has recounted watching the moon landing with wonder as a boy, quietly funded a recovery mission, and two expeditions led by David Concannon, a deep-water search and recovery expert, whose teams included a number of Seattleites. With limited geographic information provided by NASA about where the pieces might have ended up, the groups set to work, and ultimately retrieved several elements related to the F-1 rocket engines used at launch for Apollo 11, 12 and 16. The haul included the center F-1 engine from Apollo 11.

The remains of all three F-1s are now on display at the Museum of Flight in Seattle, and include an injector plate from Apollo 12, where, Huetter explains, the final combustion for liftoff would have entered the engine.