Apollo 7 was the first crewed flight in NASA's Apollo program, and saw the resumption of human spaceflight by the agency after the fire that had killed the three Apollo 1 astronauts during a launch rehearsal test on January 27, 1967. The Apollo 7 crew was commanded by Walter M. Schirra, with command module pilot Donn F. Eisele and lunar module pilot R. Walter Cunningham.
Apollo 12 was the sixth crewed flight in the United States Apollo program and the second to land on the Moon. It was launched on November 14, 1969, by NASA from the Kennedy Space Center, Florida. Commander Charles "Pete" Conrad and Lunar Module Pilot Alan L. Bean performed just over one day and seven hours of lunar surface activity while Command Module Pilot Richard F. Gordon remained in lunar orbit.
Alan LaVern Bean was an American naval officer and aviator, aeronautical engineer, test pilot, NASA astronaut and painter. He was selected to become an astronaut by NASA in 1963 as part of Astronaut Group 3, and was the fourth person to walk on the Moon.
Charles "Pete" Conrad Jr. was an American NASA astronaut, aeronautical engineer, naval officer, aviator, and test pilot, and commanded the Apollo 12 space mission, on which he became the third person to walk on the Moon. Conrad was selected for NASA's second astronaut class in 1962.
Clifton Curtis Williams Jr., was an American naval aviator, test pilot, mechanical engineer, major in the United States Marine Corps, and NASA astronaut, who was killed in a plane crash; he never went into space. The crash was caused by a mechanical failure in a NASA T-38 jet trainer, which he was piloting to visit his parents in Mobile, Alabama. The failure caused the flight controls to stop responding, and although he activated the ejection seat, it did not save him. He was the fourth astronaut from NASA's Astronaut Group 3 to have died, the first two having been killed in separate T-38 flights, and the third in the Apollo 1 fire earlier that year. The aircraft crashed in Florida near Tallahassee within an hour of departing Patrick AFB.
NASA Astronaut Group 2, also known as the Next Nine and the New Nine, was the second group of astronauts selected by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Their selection was announced on September 17, 1962. The group augmented the Mercury Seven. President John F. Kennedy had announced Project Apollo, on May 25, 1961, with the ambitious goal of putting a man on the Moon by the end of the decade, and more astronauts were required to fly the two-man Gemini spacecraft and three-man Apollo spacecraft then under development. The Mercury Seven had been selected to accomplish the simpler task of orbital flight, but the new challenges of space rendezvous and lunar landing led to the selection of candidates with advanced engineering degrees as well as test pilot experience.
The Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex is the visitor center at NASA's Kennedy Space Center on Merritt Island, Florida. It features exhibits and displays, historic spacecraft and memorabilia, shows, two IMAX theaters, and a range of bus tours of the spaceport. The "Space Shuttle Atlantis" exhibit contains the Atlantis orbiter and the Shuttle Launch Experience, a simulated ride into space. The center also provides astronaut training experiences, including a multi-axial chair and Mars Base simulator. The visitor complex also has daily presentations from a veteran NASA astronaut. A bus tour, included with admission, encompasses the separate Apollo/Saturn V Center. There were 1.7 million visitors to the visitor complex in 2016.
Magnificent Desolation: Walking on the Moon 3D is a 2005 IMAX 3D documentary film about the first humans on the Moon, the twelve astronauts in the Apollo program.
Space Center Houston is a science museum that serves as the official visitor center of NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston. It was designated a Smithsonian Affiliate museum in 2014. The organization is owned by NASA, and operated under a contract by the nonprofit Manned Spaceflight Education Foundation, a 501(c)(3) organization. The Johnson Space Center is the home of Mission Control and astronaut training.
The United States Astronaut Hall of Fame, located inside the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex Heroes & Legends building on Merritt Island, Florida, honors American astronauts and features the world's largest collection of their personal memorabilia, focusing on those astronauts who have been inducted into the Hall. Exhibits include Wally Schirra's Sigma 7 space capsule from the fifth crewed Mercury mission and the Gemini IX spacecraft flown by Gene Cernan and Thomas P. Stafford in 1966.
The mobile quarantine facility (MQF) was a converted Airstream trailer used by NASA to quarantine astronauts returning from Apollo lunar missions for the first few days after splashdown. The MQF was on the aircraft carrier that picked up the capsule. Once the aircraft carrier reached port, the MQF was flown to Houston, and the crew served the remainder of the 21 days of quarantine in the Lunar Receiving Laboratory at the Manned Spacecraft Center. The purpose of the quarantine was to prevent the spread of any contagions from the Moon, though the existence of such contagions was considered unlikely. It functioned by maintaining a lower pressure inside and filtering any air vented.
Of the 270 Apollo 11 Moon rocks and the Apollo 17 Goodwill Moon Rocks that were given to the nations of the world by the Nixon Administration, approximately 180 are unaccounted for. Many of these rocks that are accounted for have been locked away in storage for decades. The location of the rocks has been tracked by researchers and hobbyists because of their rarity and the difficulty of obtaining more. Moon rocks have been subjects of theft and forgery as well.
Robert Zane Pearlman is an American space historian and the founder and editor of collectSPACE, a website devoted to news and information concerning space exploration and space-related artifacts and memorabilia, especially in popular culture. He is also a contributing writer to Space.com.
The Apollo 11 lunar sample display is a commemorative podium style plaque display consisting of four dust particle specimens, the recipient's flag and two small metal plates attached with descriptive messages. The Apollo 11 plaques were given as gifts in 1970 by President Richard Nixon to 135 countries, the 50 states of the United States and its territories, and the United Nations.
The Apollo 17 lunar sample display consists of a Moon rock fragment from a lava Moon stone identified as lunar basalt 70017, the recipient's flag and two small metal plates attached with descriptive messages. A goodwill gift from the Apollo 17 mission was then given by President Richard Nixon in the form of a wooden commemorative plaque display to all fifty U.S. states and U.S. territories, and 135 nations worldwide.
RR Auction is an auction house established in 1976 by Bob Eaton. The company headquarters is in Boston with a production office based in Amherst, New Hampshire. The company is known for its monthly auctions of historical documents, manuscripts, autographs, artifacts, sports collectibles, spaceflight memorabilia, presidential items and more. The auction house has developed a worldwide client base and publishes monthly catalogs in print and online via issuu.
For All Moonkind, Inc. is a volunteer international nonprofit organization which is working with the United Nations and the international community to manage the preservation of history and human heritage in outer space. The organization believes that the lunar landing sites and items from space missions are of great value to the public and is pushing the United Nations to create rules that will protect lunar items and secure heritage sites on the Moon and other celestial bodies. Protection is necessary as many nations and companies are planning on returning to the Moon, and it is not difficult to imagine the damage an autonomous vehicle or an errant astronaut—an explorer, colonist or tourist—could to one of the Moon landing sites, whether intentionally or unintentionally.
Richard Jurek is an American author, numismatist, and business executive. He is the author of the book The Ultimate Engineer: The Remarkable Life of NASA’s Visionary Leader George M. Low and co-authored the book Marketing the Moon: The Selling of the Apollo Lunar Program.
Command module Columbia (CM-107) is the spacecraft that served as the command module during Apollo 11, which was the first mission to land humans on the Moon. Columbia is the only spacecraft of the 1969 Apollo 11 mission that returned to Earth.
