Specks of Apollo 11 Moon Dust Sell for $500K at Auction
Lunar dust collected by Neil Armstrong during the 1969 Apollo 11 mission was purchased this week for half a million dollars.
Auctioned as part of the Bonhams Space History sale, the particles sold for a total $504,375—short of the firm's estimated $800,000 to $1.2 million.
Bidding for the NASA-verified piece of Apollo 11 contingency sample opened at $220,000 and closed seven bids later at $400,000; the unnamed winner paid an additional $104,375 in fees for five aluminum sample stubs, topped with 10-millimeter-diameter carbon tape containing the lunar dust.
"Representing the height of human achievement when Armstrong took man's first steps on the Moon, the sale of this specimen marks the first time a part of the Apollo 11 contingency sample, which has been tested and verified, can be sold at auction," according to auction house Bonhams.
Still in their case from NASA, four vials are confirmed to have been collected by Neil Armstrong, the first person to walk on the Moon; a fifth, as reported by Space.com, features different traces, possibly due to a change in testing techniques.
NASA has long fought to keep lunar material out of the hands of the public and under lock and key by the government. In 2018, a woman claiming to own a vial of Moon dust—gifted to her as a child by Armstrong—preemptively sued the National Aeronautics and Space Administration for possession. Two years earlier, a Kansas woman bought a NASA bag used to collect lunar samples at auction for $995, then sold it for millions.
Other highlights of Bonhams' sale include an original fragment from Sputnik-1 (estimated $80,000-$120,000) and a full-sized payload carrier mockup from Explorer 1 (estimated $40,000-$60,000)—the first artificial satellite and first
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