The inflight space jacket worn by astronaut Edwin Eugene “Buzz” Aldrin when he set foot on the moon was sold for a record $2,772,500 at the Sotheby’s auction. The event took place on Tuesday, less than a week after the 53rd anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon landing
Buzz Aldrin travelled to the Moon in 1969 and is the only living member of the mission's three-man crew.
The article was sold by Sotheby’s in New York as part of the most valuable single sale of space exploration items ever staged. The sale of the space suit at $2,772,500 also makes the item the most valuable jacket ever sold at an auction. The Sotheby’s auction achieved a total of $8.2 million.
The winning bid for the jacket was placed by an anonymous bidder who participated in the auction via phone, according to Sotheby's.
The white inflight space jacket features Aldrin’s name tag on the left breast above the Apollo 11 mission emblem and the American flag on the left shoulder. Aldrin wore it while travelling in the Apollo 11 command module called the Columbia, as per a BBC report. The jacket is made of a fireproof, tightly woven silica fibre called Beta Cloth used in the production of Apollo spaceflight suits.
On July 20, 1969, Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong became the first astronauts to ever walk on the Moon. After spending over 21 hours there, the duo returned to the Apollo mission module and changed into their inflight jackets. He described the jacket as "much more comfortable", said a note accompanying the item.
The bidding lasted for almost 10 minutes before it went to an unidentified bidder over the phone.
Other personal belongings put up for auction included a broken circuit breaker and the black felt-tip pen that Buzz Aldrin used to fix the circuit breaker, preventing the crew from being stranded on the Moon.
Other items included the Apollo 11 summary flight plan from launch to splashdown. The nine-page booklet with the full timeline of the mission has descriptions of the lunar module landing, moonwalk, and lift-off. The item was sold for $819,000, which was five times more than its estimated pre-sale value.
