Lunar Auction: Artifacts from Apollo Missions For Sale

Almost 600 items that have traveled to the Moon via NASA's Apollo space missions are being offered in RR Auction's Space & Aviation online sale, which begins Thursday and runs through May 22.

These lunar artifacts include a metal fragment from the doomed Hindenburg airship and a signed photo of the vanished pilot Amelia Earhart, according to CNN.

To get a taste of how much these aviation and space-related artifacts are going for, the Apollo 15 Rotational Hand Controller, for example, - used by Commander David Scott to fly and land his lunar module on the surface of the moon in 1971 - starts at a $10,000 bid.

Reuters reported that another hot ticket item is Apollo 12 astronaut Alan Bean's support strap he wore during an eight-hour moonwalk in November 1969 (sold for $93,750).

"These items represent the pinnacle of Apollo-era flown material," said Richard Jurek, co-author of "Marketing the Moon: The Selling of the Apollo Lunar Program," CNN reported.

"While risking their lives during the most critical and historic phases of their mission, these are the items that the astronauts personally selected to retain as mementos from arguably the greatest technological and engineering achievement of the 20th century," said Jurek.

Among the plethora of artifacts for sale, 70 items from Apollo 11 - the first manned mission to land on the moon - will be offered, including pieces from the personal collections of Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins. Items from other Apollo missions as well as Mercury, Gemini, and space shuttle missions also are being auctioned.

Possibly the most talked about item up for bid is the "Lunar Bible" - a microfilm Bible regarded as one of the rarest books on Earth, after flying around the moon once with Apollo 13 and later landing on the moon's surface with Apollo 14, according to Reuters.

The 1.5 inch by 1.5 inch book, which has to be read with a microscope, sold at an auction of space memorabilia in Dallas on Wednesday for $75,000.

While this year's auction has some fascinating memorabilia, the RR Auction has been around for more than 30 years. Still, these are prized items considering most NASA mission equipment never makes the trip home, and those that do are stored away as private collections.