posted 01-19-2006 11:46 PM               

Our fourth annual Space Exploration auction on Saturday, March 18 features an important collection of manuscripts, documents and photographs related to early rocketry, including an ALS from Konstantin Tsiolkovsky to the Imperial Academy of Science inquiring about the status of funding to conduct experiments on the resistance of air, February 1900 ($2000/3000); a sheet with 7 drawings of Robert Goddard's designs for reducing and tank valves for his liquid fueled rockets ($10,000/12,000); excellent material related to the V-2 rocket including photographs, engineering diagrams, blueprints and technical documents; and Wernher von Braun correspondence and signed photographs. Among Apollo 11 artifacts from the Buzz Aldrin collection are a flown navigational chart section illustrating the flight path just prior to engine ignition that lowered Neil Armstrong and Aldrin to the lunar landing site ($25,000/30,000); and a sheet from the Lunar Surface Checklist listing procedures they followed in preparing their space suits and Lunar Module cabin in order to become the first people ever to step on the moon ($7000/9000). There are also desirable photographs and documents signed by the Apollo 11 crew. Other Apollo flights are well represented, including flown Apollo 13 material from the Fred Haise collection. Rare postal covers include the official NASA cachet for the Apollo 1 flight, postmarked the evening of the Apollo 1 spacecraft fire ($1500/2000); covers signed by complete Gemini and Apollo crews; and from the Space Shuttle program, a postal cover signed by the entire crew of the ill-fated STS-107 "Columbia" flight, postmarked on launch date and the tragic day of reentry ($4000/5000).

posted 03-07-2006 11:33 AM               

1. Apollo 1 Fire KSC cachet and cancel-- reportedly one of only 40 existing and rarely seen at auction.
   
2. Apollo 15 flown covers, both the Sieger cover and Phases of the Moon varieties.
   
3. Autographed insurance covers for Apollo 11 (the less common KSC launch), 12, 13, 14, 15 and 16.
   
4. Grissom autographed Mercury launch cover.
   
5. Crew signed covers for GT-4, GT-5 (with rare KSC cachet), GT-6 (with KSC cachet), GT-7 (with KSC cachet), GT-7/6 (all four crew on large USS Wasp cover), GT-12 and all manned Apollo flights (except Apollo 8).