Bag used by Neil Armstrong containing moon dust sells for £1.38m at auction
The artefact from the Apollo 11 mission had originally been misidentified and sold in an online government auction.
A bag used astronaut Neil Armstrong containing traces of moon dust has sold for 1.8 million US dollars (£1.38 million) at auction.
The collection bag, sold at a Sotheby’s auction of items related to space voyages, was used by Armstrong during the first manned mission to the moon in 1969.
The artefact from the Apollo 11 mission had been misidentified and sold in an online government auction and Nasa had fought to get it back.
Nancy Carlson, from Illinois, got an ordinary-looking bag made of white Beta cloth and polyester with rubberised nylon and a brass zip.
Carlson, who is a collector, knew the bag had been used in a space flight but she did not know which one. She sent it to Nasa for testing and the US space agency fought to keep it after discovering its importance.
The judge said the importance and desirability of the bag stemmed solely from the efforts of Nasa employees whose “amazing technical achievements, skill and courage in landing astronauts on the moon and returning them safely have not been replicated in the almost half a century since the Apollo 11 landing”.
The buyer declined to be identified.
