Space Junk, What artifacts have you collected? |
Space Junk, What artifacts have you collected? |
Jan 27 2006, 09:28 PM
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#1
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Member Group: Members Posts: 753 Joined: 23-October 04 From: Greensboro, NC USA Member No.: 103 |
I'm interested in hearing about and seeing pictures of the kinds of space-related geegaws, doodads, mementos, and other artifacts that other space nuts have collected!
Here's one to share to start things off. In September 1969, my dad went on a VIP tour of the Manned Spaceflight Center (now Johnson) and Kennedy Spaceflight Center. (He got to see Apollo 12 being assembled in the VAB! I'm trying to get copies of his slides.) Anyway, one of the things he was given was this 15 inch by 22 inch (38 x 56 cm), three-dimensional, vacuformed plastic replica of part of the model used for lunar landing simulator trainers. This is a part of Apollo Site 3, in Sinus Medii. The raised surface depicted is roughly 650 meters on a side, too small to be seen in the Apollo 10 photos of the area. I have not been able to find Lunar Orbiter photos of the area. There is no vertical exaggeration in scale. -------------------- Jonathan Ward
Manning the LCC at http://www.apollolaunchcontrol.com |
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Jan 27 2006, 09:42 PM
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#2
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Founder Group: Chairman Posts: 14432 Joined: 8-February 04 Member No.: 1 |
Well - I have a tiny little piece of spare Beagle 2 Heatshield material...it's just like the cork you might make a cork board out of, but a little more fiberous and fine grained. I've always been more interested in unmanned spaceflight than manned spaceflight ( although I do love a good EVA ) - and so if I was going to smash some cash on something - I'd really really like a tiny bit of the Stardust return capsule, or a bit of spare MLI from New Horizons - just a little bit of the 'stuff' from which these dreams are made.
Other than that...er... a ballast slug from a Renault F1 car and a smashed piece of Minardi F1X2 wheel rim from a race at Rockingham...ooops - sorry, wrong subject - but they're cool I like yours - I think someone's done some little relief maps of mars that you can buy - I'm tempted by the Gusev one Doug |
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Jan 27 2006, 10:00 PM
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#3
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 2488 Joined: 17-April 05 From: Glasgow, Scotland, UK Member No.: 239 |
That vac-form is a gorgeous item! Very nice, a real treasure - ephemeral, too.
I have: o Tomato seeds flown aboard the LDEF o A badge flown aboard Resurs-500 in 1992 o The Challenger flown philatelic cover and: o A range of meteorites and tektites And some coal from the Titanic debris field. I believe the chap that went after Gus Grissom's Mercury capsule (I tried to persuade Bob Ballard to go for it back in the 80s!) has expressed an interest in hunting for Apollo-era S-1C debris downrange from Cape Kennedy, which would be a serious opportunity for us memorabilia collectors to have parts of the first manned vehicles to go to the Moon. I really *must* get myself organised and buy one of the Data Acquisition Camera film frames recovered from the ocean, real soon now... Bob Shaw -------------------- Remember: Time Flies like the wind - but Fruit Flies like bananas!
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Jan 27 2006, 10:51 PM
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#4
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Member Group: Members Posts: 753 Joined: 23-October 04 From: Greensboro, NC USA Member No.: 103 |
I have one other goodie I'm proud of - a 1-inch square piece of Kapton foil which was cut from LM-2 while they were prepping in for display in the National Air & Space Museum in Washington.
And, in writing this, I have just learned about the thriving market in space collectibles. I had no idea! -------------------- Jonathan Ward
Manning the LCC at http://www.apollolaunchcontrol.com |
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Jan 28 2006, 12:53 AM
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#5
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 2454 Joined: 8-July 05 From: NGC 5907 Member No.: 430 |
QUOTE (Bob Shaw @ Jan 27 2006, 05:00 PM) That vac-form is a gorgeous item! Very nice, a real treasure - ephemeral, too. I have: o Tomato seeds flown aboard the LDEF o A badge flown aboard Resurs-500 in 1992 o The Challenger flown philatelic cover and: o A range of meteorites and tektites And some coal from the Titanic debris field. I believe the chap that went after Gus Grissom's Mercury capsule (I tried to persuade Bob Ballard to go for it back in the 80s!) has expressed an interest in hunting for Apollo-era S-1C debris downrange from Cape Kennedy, which would be a serious opportunity for us memorabilia collectors to have parts of the first manned vehicles to go to the Moon. I really *must* get myself organised and buy one of the Data Acquisition Camera film frames recovered from the ocean, real soon now... Bob Shaw Why didn't Robert Ballard go after Grissom's Mercury spacecraft? Did you ask him before or after he found the Titanic in 1985? -------------------- "After having some business dealings with men, I am occasionally chagrined,
and feel as if I had done some wrong, and it is hard to forget the ugly circumstance. I see that such intercourse long continued would make one thoroughly prosaic, hard, and coarse. But the longest intercourse with Nature, though in her rudest moods, does not thus harden and make coarse. A hard, sensible man whom we liken to a rock is indeed much harder than a rock. From hard, coarse, insensible men with whom I have no sympathy, I go to commune with the rocks, whose hearts are comparatively soft." - Henry David Thoreau, November 15, 1853 |
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Jan 28 2006, 09:59 AM
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#6
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 1870 Joined: 20-February 05 Member No.: 174 |
Besides the off-the-air audiotapes of manned and unmanned spaceflights that my brother and I taped, starting with the launch of Ranger 3 and John Glenn's first 2 orbits, my biggest "collectible" is a probably essentially complets set of Viking Lander 1 and 2 Experiment Data Record LANTERN SLIDES. (Not 35mm... the large format slides sandwiched in glass and fastened around the edges with aluminum strips!). Ray Arvidson, my thesis advisor, was discarding them and I just new that the right place for them was not the trash. Sets had been made and distributed to (I believe) all the primary mission imaging team members, and for most of them, they were of little use. (I think lantern slides were primarily used in Europe, and less commonly in the US for large-auditorium presentations.)
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Guest_PhilCo126_* |
Jan 28 2006, 10:30 AM
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#7
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Guests |
Way too much to list
Some Russian Sokol and Orlan space suit gloves |
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Jan 28 2006, 12:59 PM
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#8
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 2488 Joined: 17-April 05 From: Glasgow, Scotland, UK Member No.: 239 |
QUOTE (ljk4-1 @ Jan 28 2006, 01:53 AM) Why didn't Robert Ballard go after Grissom's Mercury spacecraft? Did you ask him before or after he found the Titanic in 1985? I asked him *after* he found the Titanic, and although he expressed an interest that was as far as it went. I'll dig out my correspondence with him sometime to see his exact words. Bob Shaw -------------------- Remember: Time Flies like the wind - but Fruit Flies like bananas!
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Jan 28 2006, 05:04 PM
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#9
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Member Group: Members Posts: 255 Joined: 4-January 05 Member No.: 135 |
QUOTE (djellison @ Jan 27 2006, 09:42 PM) Are you sure it was spare? You might have some explaining to do.... I don't have any space bits, but have always just resisted the temptation to buy one of these. As for other bits, I have a valve from a WWII Hurricane's Merlin engine. I very smugly showed it to my Dad, and said "What's this then?". He looked at it for all of 10 msec, and said "Its the inlet valve for a Merlin engine. Where did you get that?". I had forgotten he started his career as an apprentice draughtsman at Rolls-Royce... Chris |
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Jan 28 2006, 07:58 PM
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#10
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 2488 Joined: 17-April 05 From: Glasgow, Scotland, UK Member No.: 239 |
QUOTE (PhilCo126 @ Jan 28 2006, 11:30 AM) Did you mention *pictures*? Go on, go on, go on. Bob Shaw -------------------- Remember: Time Flies like the wind - but Fruit Flies like bananas!
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Jan 28 2006, 09:46 PM
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#11
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Member Group: Members Posts: 753 Joined: 23-October 04 From: Greensboro, NC USA Member No.: 103 |
Yes, PICTURES!!!!
-------------------- Jonathan Ward
Manning the LCC at http://www.apollolaunchcontrol.com |
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Jan 28 2006, 11:19 PM
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#12
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Member Group: Members Posts: 624 Joined: 10-August 05 Member No.: 460 |
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Jan 29 2006, 10:28 AM
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#13
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 1870 Joined: 20-February 05 Member No.: 174 |
A cute item in Dad's kitchen drawer is a flat-faced metal shaping hammer (can't remember it's actual type name) used on the first prototype Republic P-47 Thunderbolt when my dad worked there before WW-II.
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Jan 29 2006, 06:04 PM
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#14
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Member Group: Members Posts: 903 Joined: 30-January 05 Member No.: 162 |
I have a piece of Skylab (really)
I also have some of the microscopic latex beads manufactured on the Challenger while in space. Also have a PC board out of B-52 bomb bay controller (CSRL) that I turned into a clock. (one of those swords to plowshares things ) Dad found a weird rock when I was a kid, it was even magnetic, but the university said it was not a meteorite. Too bad, it was heavy. |
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Jan 29 2006, 06:33 PM
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#15
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Senior Member Group: Admin Posts: 4763 Joined: 15-March 05 From: Glendale, AZ Member No.: 197 |
Well since we are now mentioning aircraft parts, I have a boxfull of scrap I picked up while wandering parts of Edwards AFB where I shouldn't have been. Found a nice round crater about ten feet wide and some kicking and sifting revealed wires, cables, cracked fiberglass, and even a sheared-off half-inch steel bolt.
I show off that bolt quite frequently. Who knows what exotic test vehicle (probably from the 1960s) it once belonged to. -------------------- If Occam had heard my theory, things would be very different now.
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