
Neil Armstrong's purse: First moonwalker had hidden bag of Apollo 11 artifacts - antr
http://www.collectspace.com/news/news-020615b-neil-armstrong-artifacts-purse.html
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ChuckMcM
_" In September 2012, one month after Armstrong died, President Barack Obama
signed into law a bill that confirmed the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo
astronauts had legal title their mementos."_

Which explains why he never told anyone about them, their ownership was
unclear and while deeply significant to Armstrong the artifacts could easily
have been confiscated by NASA and put in some dusty vault to rot away like the
suits they wore mostly did before being rescued.

~~~
stefantalpalaru
> their ownership was unclear

It was NASA's property and the astronaut stole it.

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davebindy
The items would have been lost (probably forever) when the LEM was crashed
back onto the moon, so where's the harm? Other people _did_ know that
Armstrong had the items - as the article states, he reported the bag to
Collins, who in turn told NASA about it, so he wasn't exactly being sneaky
about it. I suppose you could argue that it wasn't really "trash" but NASA
obviously considered the articles "disposable" once they'd served their
purpose.

Armstrong stuck the bag in a closet for 40 years. At least he didn't try to
sell them. NASA turned a blind eye to Mercury and Gemini astronauts taking
personal items (and things like stamps, paper money and coins) into space,
because they gave them to family and friends. Only when these "space flown"
items started being sold for considerable sums of money did NASA try to put a
halt to the practice. I'm sure Armstrong's "mementos" could have been sold -
either above or below board - for large amounts, but I doubt that's something
Armstrong would have ever considered.

~~~
benihana
In fact I think remember hearing (in When We Left Earth) one of the Mercury
astronauts say they made a military pilot's salary (which while not bad,
probably wasn't in line with what they were doing) so they sold those space
mementos to put their kids through college. They weren't trying to get rich,
just trying to do what any reasonable parent would do.

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zck
It's interesting to compare the waist tether
([http://www.collectspace.com/images/news-020615h-lg.jpg](http://www.collectspace.com/images/news-020615h-lg.jpg))
from this article with locking carabiners used by rock climbers
([http://www.rei.com/product/722360/black-diamond-rocklock-
twi...](http://www.rei.com/product/722360/black-diamond-rocklock-twistlock-
carabiner), [http://www.rei.com/product/722353/black-diamond-rocklock-
scr...](http://www.rei.com/product/722353/black-diamond-rocklock-screwgate-
carabiner)). I wonder what the design requirements were -- it seems surprising
to me that the only locking part of the waist tether is a button. It seems
like that button could get accidentally hit, causing the tether to unlock and
become unsafe; that is, unless the button has a spring forcing it to the
"lock" position.

Interestingly, there is a new carabiner on the market whose locking mechanism
is more like a button ([http://www.rei.com/product/840193/black-diamond-
magnetron-ro...](http://www.rei.com/product/840193/black-diamond-magnetron-
rocklock-locking-carabiner)): the difference being that the mechanism must be
activated from both sides (via pinching the purple parts in the image), and
has magnets forcing the carabiner into the "locked" state when not being held
unlocked.

Also interesting is that the waist tether is adjustable. That could be a point
of failure -- imagine floating off the end of your tether. Although I can't
tell whether the waist tether is designed to attach astronauts to the
spaceship, or just tools to astronauts. Howstuffworks.com implies it attaches
astronauts to the spaceship
([http://science.howstuffworks.com/spacewalk4.htm](http://science.howstuffworks.com/spacewalk4.htm)),
but brighthub.com implies it's for tools
([http://www.brighthub.com/science/space/articles/126178.aspx](http://www.brighthub.com/science/space/articles/126178.aspx)).

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visarga
Interesting story. They shy away of actually saying he stole the objects. I
wonder how nostalgic he was about the trip to the moon for the rest of his
life...

~~~
visakanv
Are you familiar with The Overview Effect? It's a reported experience that
many astronauts have after viewing the Earth from space:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overview_effect](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overview_effect)

[http://vimeo.com/55073825](http://vimeo.com/55073825)

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51Cards
I found this on a NASA site about the purse:

"Finally, in a 13 July 2005 e-mail, Neil Armstrong says that the flown Apollo
12 purse " looks just the way I remember it - but it looks cleaner than the
one on Apollo 11."

Sneaky guy.

[https://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a12/A12Flown-
Purse.html](https://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a12/A12Flown-Purse.html)

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snide
Can't remember who exactly, but think it was Gus Grissom who brought along
rolls of coins along during his Mercury mission as a money making scheme.

Remember reading this in The Right Stuff, and it was likely in the movie as
well.

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jcoffland
Could have been titled, "Neil Armstrong purse snatcher."

