Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online
No matter what you have in your closet, it isn’t as cool as what Neil Armstrong’s widow found buried in the back of his: a bag filled with artifacts from the iconic Apollo 11 moon landing.
Armstrong, who was the first man to step foot on the lunar surface, died at the age of 82 due to complications following heart surgery in August 2012. Following his passing, his widow Carol contacted the Smithsonian to donate items that the late astronaut had kept in his closet.
As the Museum revealed in a blog post earlier this week, that collection included a white cloth bag known as temporary stowage bag or a McDivitt Purse, which was, according to CNET, designed to attach to the inside of the Lunar Module. While the bag itself was interesting, what it held was far more fascinating – items including a waste tether, a helmet strap, and a wrench.
The most fascinating discovery of all, however, was the original 16mm Data Acquisition Camera that was used by the Apollo 11 astronauts to record those iconic first steps onto the surface of the moon. The camera was mounted in the Eagle lunar module’s window, Smithsonian space history department curator Allan Needell explained, in order to capture that historic footage.
The waist tether was one of two provided in the lunar module for the purpose of securing the astronauts in the event that they needed to spacewalk from the Eagle to the Command Module due to a problem reconnecting the two spacecraft in orbit around the Moon, Needell added. The museum has determined that the tether was the one that Armstrong had jerry-rigged in order to support his feet during the lone rest period on the Apollo 11 mission.
Other items found in Armstrong’s collection, according to NASA, include power cables, utility lights, bracket assemblies, optical sights, netting, a mirror, a lens shade, an eye guard assembly, a waste management cover, and an emergency wrench. The museum plans to document and catalog the entire collection, and intends to place them on public display when possible.
According to the Washington Post, neither the bag nor the artifacts were supposed to make their way back to Earth. Rather, they were supposed to remain with the Eagle, which was left behind when the crew left the moon. Instead, it appears that the astronauts wound up bringing back the bag, as well as 10 pounds of equipment Armstrong had previously described to Michael Collins as “odds and ends” and “just a bunch of trash that we want to take back.”
“As far as we know, Neil has never discussed the existence of these items and no one else has seen them in the 45 years since he returned from the Moon,” Needell said. He added that he had asked Armstrong’s authorized biographer, James Hansen, if the former astronaut had mentioned the items and was informed that Armstrong had not disclosed the existence of the mementos.
“Each and every item has its own story and significance,” the curator added. “Seeing such things with one’s own eyes helps us to appreciate that these accomplishments are not just in history books or movies, but involved real people and real things, and that they involved an extraordinary amount of detailed engineering and planning.”
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