posted 07-25-2013 04:47 PM               

According to this listing, the estate includes space memorabilia from Yardley's career with McDonnell Aircraft Corp. and NASA. He died in 2001.

After three years in the Navy during World War II, Yardley began his aerospace career at McDonnell Douglas in 1946. While at McDonnell Douglas, he worked on cutting-edge human space flight projects, leading the design team for the Mercury spacecraft, and serving as Launch Operations Manager for the Mercury and Gemini spacecraft and later as the technical director for the Gemini Program.

At NASA, Yardley served as Associate Administrator for Manned Space Flight (later renamed Space Transportation Systems) where he led the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project and Spacelab, and was responsible for development and acquisition of the Space Shuttle, launching a new era in human space flight.

posted 07-27-2013 03:27 PM               

I called the guy running the sale today (the second date of the estate sale), to see if there was anything left of his NASA stuff (I have a friend who lives just a few miles away and was willing to pick up and ship anything to me). He said that it pretty much all sold right away on Friday morning.

There was a crowd of 30-40 people waiting for an hour or more before the house opened, a long enough line that they gave out numbered places in line to keep people from stampeding. The NASA stuff went immediately, with some things going in lots (like the contractor models) and others going separately (like the autographed pictures).

Apparently the heirs kept a few items, not many, and what they didn't want, got sold at the estate sale. I didn't ask about prices, but from what I was told it sounded like collectors bought the items rather than people who bought for resale (if that were the case, I would have expected fewer people purchasing more items).