posted 07-29-2019 07:31 AM            

I thought the Apollo fire happened mostly inside capsule, so how can there be charring outside as shown by Apollo One specimen?
Any insight will be welcome. Thank you.

This set was owned by a NASA employee, Mr. William G Witte. They are all in their original annotated envelopes. They were each a part of cores taken from the command modules for post flight testing.

posted 07-29-2019 02:57 PM               

Again as with so many items that surface it is hard to prove that any of these samples go with the card shown, moreover that they flew on a manned mission at all.

I have a nice Apollo heat shield sample from an unknown mission but most likely unmanned. Think of how easy it would be to cut it up and claim manned mission flown status.

posted 07-29-2019 03:50 PM               

quote:

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Originally posted by Chuckster01:
As Apollo 1 never flew there should be zero charring on that sample.

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posted 07-29-2019 05:25 PM            

The alleged Apollo 11 card states "TEST AV COAT 43/117-ww" whatever that means.

posted 07-30-2019 01:37 AM            

The seller of these pieces is a very well known ex-collector who I am sure many of you know. However, I do not have his permission to reveal his name here. I am not the seller of the above items.

The Apollo 1 piece is very intriguing. The NASA report on Apollo 1 does show an image of ablation on an area of the heatshield. But that part shown is the forward heatshield, not the aft (lower) heatshield.

Now the piece shown is about two inches long, which means that it is from the lower aft heatshield, as it is only the aft heatshield that was this thick. So how did aft heatshield have charring?

It is quite possible that I did not read the full report correctly. I have sent a message to heatshield experts at NASA, but not sure if they will reply.

posted 07-30-2019 02:59 AM            

The Apollo 11 sale had multiple pieces, and I bought some. However, now I want to, as a project, design (and wear) a wristwatch with space flown material. So I have decided to sell one piece, to raise a bit of money for that project.

The seller has been a big time collector, but I get the impression that space collecting is not something he is much excited about anymore. It's more like, let me get rid of my stock lying around.

I am intrigued by this sale. Lets for a moment think it is a hoax. It would have to be an very elaborate one as the coloration of the material, charring, aluminium paint, epoxy, etc. of the specimens is very authentic. In other words, very sophisticated. Now if you were such a sophisticated hoaxer, surely the last thing you would do, is to make a Apollo 1 sample.

Now let us imagine that these are test samples. However, if these were test samples, they would not be irregular shapes. If you look at samples, they are invariably large, very standardised shapes.

My gut feeling is that Apollo 1 fire did spread in ways that we do not know and may have had some charring effect on the heat shield. After all, of all the specimens, it is the Apollo 1 heatshield that shows least charring.

posted 07-30-2019 03:29 AM               

I would guess that if we work on the basis there is insufficient evidence to assign these samples to a particular mission/s then a price of around £500 for the lot would seem more realistic.

posted 07-30-2019 05:47 AM            

I had another look at one of my pieces from a collection similar to one on sale. On closer look I can see, at one side of piece is part of the honey comb matrix into which the heat shield material was pored into. Also there is a impression of a hole in the lower part of the honeycomb matrix, which I think is the air hole.

They filled about 360,000 cells by hand. I think these holes allowed air to escape as they filled the honeycombs.

posted 07-30-2019 07:13 AM               

quote:

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Originally posted by oly:
I wold be curious to know what temperature AVcoat chars...

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quote:

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I would also be curious about the silver paint...

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posted 07-31-2019 09:50 AM               

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posted 08-01-2019 09:18 AM               

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posted 08-01-2019 09:56 AM            

Regarding the above sale with the Apollo 1 piece, I think that auction closed without a sale. As I said before, that seller was big in the collector business in the past, but no longer that interested. I would not be surprised if that person would have just put it back into a cupboard to be forgotten.

I personally think that these are genuine Apollo shields. They are way too difficult to fake. It would not be cost effective to do such a big hoax. One would have to get the material right, the charring right, the colour change right, and in some pieces, also make fibreglass honeycomb with vent holes in the right place.