posted 03-03-2008 11:57 PM               

Not only that, but I've never seen any resin display that contained pieces from so many missions or that mixed artifacts together from Gemini & Apollo flights.

Whoever did it, either put their entire collection into this one resin block, but if they did, why make up a hodgepodge display to give it away to a small oil company exec in the 80's?

The other problem with it is that you have no idea what piece belongs to what flight, so how can it be accurately priced, even if it is authentic flown material? If someone can find the guy on the plaque and get a letter from him, it might help, but I seriously doubt he remembers or holds this piece in any importance.

Without any provenance or history about it, I wouldn't touch it.

posted 03-05-2008 05:19 PM               

All three Kapton pieces had to come from Apollo (the Kapton on Gemini did not return to Earth).

That leaves three remaining pieces of hardware and only two Gemini flights to represent. One could make an educated guess that the two bolts are from Gemini (given their common theme) leaving the small (heat shield?) segment to be from the remaining Apollo flight.

posted 03-05-2008 11:41 PM               

Florian

posted 03-18-2008 11:36 PM               

There were about 2 hours to go before the auction ended, when I heard from this gentleman and now that the piece is on it's way to me, I can tell you the story.

The gentleman on the plaque was VP of an offshore oil company that owned deep sea oil platforms and they trained on & offshore workers. In 1981, this gentleman hired Dr. Robert Jones to train oil workers, his company is currently called Jones-Bright International in Houston and Dr. Jones was given contracts by this gentleman. They became close personal friends in 1980, Dr. Jones, according to this gentleman, worked at NASA on Gemini & Apollo and helped design the Apollo spacesuits.

I haven't been able to find out any info about Dr. Robert Jones, other than he died in an auto accident in the 1990's. If anyone has heard of or knows anything about Dr. Jones, I'd appreciate hearing about him.

Over the years, Dr. Jones had given this gentleman a dozen or so personal presentations and awards. In 1986-87, Dr. Jones made up 2 presentations with flown space artifacts in them that he had collected from his days at NASA. He made up these resin pieces in his garage and gave them to this gentleman with the plaques.

When I sent a photo of the award, he confirmed that it was 1 of the 2 Dr. Jones had made for him, just before he left the company. Until I told him that it was up for sale on Ebay, he had no idea that he didn't have and he assumed it was with his business records. Apparently his wife gave them away to Goodwill in 1997 when he retired and left Houston.

Unfortunately the other award & resin piece haven't been found and the Ebay seller doesn't have it. The best part is that the gentleman remembers exactly which piece of flown spacecraft material is from which mission, so at least I'm able to ID the pieces and what goes with which mission.

Robert was correct in that the bolts are from the Gemini flights, with the one on the left side being from GT-4 and the one on the right being from GT-7, the heatshield material is from Apollo 11, the long foil strip is from Apollo 7, the foil to the right is Apollo 12 and the large piece at the bottom left is from Apollo 15.

I have no plans to break it up, but I did get a letter from the gentleman on the plaque, attesting to the history of the pice and ID'ing which pieces are from which mission.

Previous to seeing this piece, I've never seen such a rough looking, authentic resin display or one that has artifacts from more than 1 mission. I've since been told by someone else, that they've seen pieces like this before, with artifacts mixed together from different missions.

Like everything I seem to buy, it has a long story associated with it.

posted 03-21-2008 02:17 AM               

Sometimes it's better to be lucky than good and I feel like Scott Cornish researching an unknown style of Armstrong's autograph, then discovering it's authentic.

posted 03-21-2008 12:34 PM               

He did indeed work on spacesuits, but was most notable for his work on helmets. He and James H. O'Kane are generally credited with "inventing" the bubble helmet for Apollo. I use the quotes because bubble helmets had been used on various suit designs for decades, but theirs was the first practical one. Indeed, they got the patent for it, #3,502,074. His name is on several other helmet-related documents I have.

Prior to NASA, he was with the Air Force and got his PhD in psychology. He worked in Crew Systems Division while at NASA and I've seen one general reference to him developing a spacesuit, but haven't come across anything specific that suggests which suit. As far as I can tell, he wasn't with NASA for that long. Dr. Jones arrived sometime after 1963 and left NASA sometime in the late 1960s (prior to 1969).

One of his notable contributions in my opinion was as author of NASA TN-D-3482, "Evaluation and Comparison of Three Space Suit Assemblies," July 1966. Those of you familiar with suit history know this was the product of NASA's determination to re-compete the Apollo suit contract in mid-1965 after the initial ILC-Hamilton Standard "marriage" blew up. This report lists the results of comparing an independent ILC suit, one by Hamilton Standard and Goodyear, and another by David Clark. The ILC suit won and was what led to the A7L.

He died on 22 January 1997. He was married to Susan Jones, with whom he had 5 daughters (!). They lived in texas at the time of his death, so you may be able to find her if you really want to discover more. Or you may try cross-posting this (or a separate topic) on the Space Workers forum to see if anyone else can help.

Hope this helps.

Cheers,

Kevin

posted 03-21-2008 12:40 PM               

WOW... thanks so much for the info and I'll include it with the letter I'm getting from this gentleman.

I called Jones-Bright International in Houston and left my number for Mrs. Jones, but she hasn't called yet.

Thanks again for your help & time,

posted 03-21-2008 12:47 PM               

I'm also an interested party if you get in touch with Dr. Jones' family. I've been trying to get in touch with some of the other helmet guys to clear up a few research questions. If you do talk to her, I'd like to know if her husband happened to have saved any stashes of documentation related to designing the bubble helmet or any of his other NASA work. I'm keenly interested in the history of Crew Systems Division and their work and am always on the lookout for stuff that can add to my research and current writing on that.