posted 05-28-2019 09:11 AM               

When I spoke to Tom Stafford he mentioned that five to six smaller (thinner segments, about the diameter of a cigarette) were given to each crew member.

I would be interested to know where the ten VIPs comes from.. is there any info on this. I am planning on writing an article about the heat shield and it would be interesting to do a short bit on where are they now...

posted 05-28-2019 10:48 AM               

I've collected about 250-300 vintage resins and lucites, 80%+ are from the Apollo program and 60-70% are ablator material. The NAA executive I purchased the Apollo 7 full plug from in 1998, told me there were only 10 complete bottom plugs from the CM embedded and that most of the other heatshield material was split up to make smaller resin / lucite displays.

posted 05-28-2019 10:51 AM               

I've dedicated a section of my website Souvenirs of Space to these heatshield presentations with diagrams of their locations on spacecraft, the different styles of presentations created, and the organization that presented them.

There are three types of source heatshield material that was used:

1. Aft heatshield plugs (1.25 inch diameter) – 59 of these larger diameter plugs covered bolts used to attach the blunt body ablative material on the "bottom" of the CM. All were removed post-flight to allow for analysis/processing/decontamination of the CM.

   A handful were kept whole, encased in lucite and presented to both the crew and VIPs involved with the mission (i.e. flight directors, NASA management). A number is engraved into the bottom of the plug to identify its location, as the heatshield has a differing thickness depending on location. For at least Apollo 11, 12 and 13, each astronaut was given a plug mounted in lucite on a wood base with a plaque as "higher quality display" (for lack of a better term).

   In my discussions with former employees and astronauts, it was typical for 10-15 being made for each mission, with 3-5 for each astronaut and a couple for VIPs. They in turn then gifted these to personal friends or family or in many cases the kept them until their sale at an auction (Bean, Cernan, Conrad, Gordon, Lovell, McDivitt, Swigert, Young) all had sold several from their collections in recent years. There are a few on display in museums as well.

   Several copies of an official memo exist from the time of the Skylab missions that describes the lucites in detail and how they were presented by NASA to certain employees through the awards office. NASA presented ones were created by Clearfloat, but I have yet to determine the person’s name who was responsible for ordering these presentations as they would be in the best position to confirm the approximate numbers we have now.

   Several full plugs were retained by North American Aviation, who sliced them into sections and made lucite presentations for the astronauts and also VIPs in their organization. Typically, astronauts and top brass would get a larger section of the plug (i.e. 1/2 or 1/4 slice from the circular section) and others would get smaller sections (closer to 1/8 of the whole). These are mostly found for Apollo 7, 8, 9, and 10 and are in a capsule shaped lucite.

   A few intact plugs exist that are not encased in lucite, where attribution to a certain mission requires more diligence and if possible is determined by chain of custody/provenance.

2. Crew compartment plugs (0.5 inch diameter) - many hundreds of these smaller diameter threaded plugs covered the removable access panel bolts across the crew compartment (i.e. panels for accessing electrical components, re-entry and environmental systems, windows, etc.). A smaller number of these were kept whole, encased in lucite and presented to both the crew and VIPs involved with the mission (i.e. flight directors, NASA management).

   Apollo 11 is basically the only mission where you see these in a vintage lucite presentation from NASA. For other missions many "homemade" presentations from the era exist that were created by the workers themselves, with Apollo 8 numbering the most (these are not documented on the website currently as styles and provenance vary wildly).

   Mostly you will find intact plugs existing that are not encased in lucite and there are hundreds of these out there. Heritage Auctions has sold groups in the past, with direct ties to a former NASA engineer Don Hamilton. Other engineers also saved these as their sheer numbers, smaller size, and fragility when removed relegated them to be more easily scrapped.

3. Cut sections/blocks of aft heatshield, some with honeycomb attached (not plugs) - these sections of charred ablator material are almost exclusively seen from the two unmanned test missions (AS-201 and Apollo 4). Among mission objectives was to test the heatshield performance from a LEO re-entry profile (AS-201) and lunar re-entry profile (Apollo 4) simulating the effects and speed for those upcoming flights. Post-flight, the entire heatshield was removed and chopped up for analysis, so much larger and non-circular sections exist. NAA had most of these presentations made for their employees but a handful from astronauts do exist today.

posted 05-28-2019 11:21 AM               

I always thought it was interesting that here it sounds like Lovell had to get lucky just to snag one when it turns out that Swigert had three stashed away (fresh in their original boxes) in his belongings all those years.