The "joystick" assembly from the fourth manned US lunar landing was bought at a whopping $610,063 in an online auction. This sets an apparent new record for the most ever paid for a space-travel antique collectable.
The joystick in question is a spring-loaded hand controller complete with attached cables that was previously owned by Apollo 15 commander David Scott. Scott reportedly took the part from the lunar landing module as souvenir before the 1971 mission team returned to Earth, according to AFP News.
An earlier Nature World News article reported that Scott's controller had a starting bid of $10,000, a pittance compared to its final selling price. According to Bobby Livingston, executive vice president of New Hampshire-based RR Auction, the joystick went to an anonymous European client.
Livingston told CNN, that the collectable was unique in the fact that it saw more use than most when Scott had to manually land with the joystick after the 1971 module slipped off-course during his descent to the moon.
"We all can imagine what it must have been like to land on the moon, but to have the chance to grab hold of the very joystick that accomplished that feat is a priceless experience -- and at the same time, worth every bit of the more than half a million dollars it commanded at auction," said Robert Pearlman, editor and founder of space history website CollectSpace.com, who blogged about the purchase.
The record-setting controller was auctioned alongside more than 500 antique collectables that were involved in space travel in one way or another. Most were associated with Apollo missions.
"These items represent the pinnacle of Apollo-era flown material," Richard Jurek, co-author of "Marketing the Moon: The Selling of the Apollo Lunar Program," told CNN.
These items ranged from mementos, like the joystick, taken by astronauts on their return home, to things simply kept in NASA storage closets after use.
Cloth commemorative American flags that were taken to the lunar surface were also popular items, selling for tens-of-thousands of dollars to collectors who wanted a piece of the history that put an exclusive group of 12 human beings, out of billions, on the Moon.
You can see all the complete sales from the RR Auction here.