Alexei Leonov’s space suit snatched up for $242,000 at Bonhams’ Space History Sale


Bonhams Auction House celebrated fifty years of the first American to space with a Space History Sale. What took the oomph out of everyone was Alexei Leonov’s flown space suit sold for a staggering $242,000, much more than its $100,000-$150,000 estimate. The event commemorated the first American Alan Shepard to fly to space on the Freedom 7, where more than 200 mementos were offered for sale at the auction. Alexei, commander of the Soyuz 19 spacecraft, wore the spacesuit during the 1975 Apollo Soyuz Test Project, marking the first time the Americans and the Soviets met in space with their spaceships. Zvezda made it and was categorized as a “rescue suit,” which was designed to protect the wearer in the event of spacecraft depressurization.

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The auction also sold Gennadi Strekalov’s Soyuz TM-10 spacesuit for $67,100. Other products included Scott’s Lunar Surface Stopwatch, documents from NASA’s ill-fated Apollo 13 moon mission are for sale, as well as gold medals, signed photographs, Russian spacesuits, a tissue box that flew to the moon, and a 30-meter scale model of the Concorde as well as flight plans, emblems, medallions, hardware, and photographs. Also, two spacesuits posed in front of Soviet-era posters and a bronze-colored tag stamped with the number 65, worn by Ham, the first chimpanzee in space, a Bulova stopwatch, a timepiece carried to the surface of the moon onboard Apollo 15 as well as a 1993-era Nintendo Game Boy, complete with a game of Tetris still inside. Everyone old and young took part in this auction – it isn’t every day there can be such an auction.
[Foxnews] And [Bornrich]

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