Category Archives: The Moon

Watch worn by astronaut Dave Scott on the lunar surface up for auction

October 6, 2015 TopSpacer 1 Comment

The watch worn by astronaut Dave Scott while on the surface of the Moon during the Apollo 15 mission is up for auction: Apollo 15 Lunar Surface Chronograph.

Here’s a statement from RR Auction about the watch:

Dave Scott’s Apollo 15 Chronograph Watch to be auctioned
Only privately owned watch worn on the Moon— set for auction on October 22

BOSTON, MA – (October, 1 15) Dave Scott’s Apollo 15 lunar surface-worn chronograph watch will be auctioned Boston-based RR Auction.

Of the select dozen men that have stepped foot on the Moon, all have worn the standard Omega chronographs. Officially issued by NASA, they are acknowledged as government property, and many, including Dave Scott’s watch used during his first two moonwalks are housed in institutions, a distinction that leaves Commander Scott’s Bulova Chronograph, worn during his third and final moonwalk of the mission— as the only lunar surface watch in private hands.

The watch is visible here on Scott’s left hand.

The Bulova Wrist Chronograph, exhibits significant wear from exposure while on the Moon, and from splashdown and recovery.

“Among the decisions I made, the monitoring of time was perhaps most important,” Commander Dave Scott stated in a detailed five-page letter of authenticity confirming its background story and mission use.Colonel David R. Scott—Gemini 8 Pilot, Apollo 9 CMP, Apollo 15 CDR—amassed a combined 546 hours in space, was the seventh man to walk on the Moon and the first astronaut to operate the Lunar Rover on the Moon’s surface.

“This may be a once in a lifetime chance to own a watch that was worn on the surface of the Moon,” said Bobby Livingston, Executive VP at RR Auction. “In 2014, we auctioned Dave Scott’s hand controller – used to land on the moon for $610,000, and I expect that the watch will sell for much more, somewhere between $750,000 – $1,000,000.”

The Space and Aviation Autograph and Artifact Auction by RR Auction will run from October 15 through October 22.

Online bidding for the Dave Scott’s Apollo 15 Lunar Surface Chronograph will be available until 6:00 pm ET on October 22. At 7:00 pm ET, the live auction of this lot will begin in our Boston Gallery. Only phone bids or in-person bids will be accepted during the live auction.

For information, visit the RR Auction web site at www.rrauction.com.

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More images in the Bulova chronograph Apoll0 15 image gallery.

DIY space, Rockets, The Moon

Moonspike crowd-funding a mission to put a tiny payload into the Moon

October 6, 2015 TopSpacer

The Moonspike project made its debut last week. The project aims to build a low cost two-stage rocket and a spacecraft to send a “tiny” payload to the Moon. The group is led by Chris Larmour, who has run several technology companies, and Kristian von Bengtson, who is well-known as a co-founder of Copenhagen Suborbitals, an organization developing a rocket for carrying a single person on a suborbital space trip. While Copenhagen Suborbitals is a volunteer, non-profit, the Moonspike project is organized as the private company Moonspike, Ltd.

The goal is to impact this 1 gram “Lunar Penetrator” into the Moon’s surface:

The spike is titanium and the disk will hold a flash memory chip with digital photos and messages from backers of the project.

Moonspike has opened a crowd-funding campaign to raise over $909k and as of today has gotten nearly $80k pledged with 26 days left: Moonspike: the World’s First Crowdfunded Moon Rocket by Moonspike Limited — Kickstarter.

You can download their feasibility report (pdf).

Here is a video laying out their plan:

Space participation, Space Science, The Moon

Lunar Mission One and Astrobotic will take put your “Footsteps on the Moon”

September 30, 2015 TopSpacer

Lunar Mission One is a non-profit organization seeking to raise public funding for space science projects. Their primary space science goal is to put a robotic spacecraft on the south pole of the Moon in 2024 to investigate water and other resources there. A Kickstarter campaign in 2014 raised over $1M.

They have a number of public involvement initiatives programs underway. This week, for example, they opened the Footsteps on the Moon campaign in which you upload “a photo of your footprints, feet or shoes” that will be sent to the Moon on digital storage.

The transport to the Moon will be via Astrobotic‘s lunar lander mission: Lunar Mission One Signs Deal with Astrobotic

Astrobotic Technology Inc. and Lunar Missions Ltd, the company behind the global, inclusive, not-for- profit crowd-funded Lunar Mission One, have signed a deal to send the first digital storage payload to the Moon. The payload will support Lunar Mission One’s ‘Footsteps on the Moon’ campaign, launched earlier today, which invites millions of people to include their footsteps – in addition to images, video and music – in a digital archive of human life that will be placed on the moon during Astrobotic’s first lunar mission.

“The partnership with Lunar Mission One is an exciting opportunity for individuals to store memorable information on the surface of the Moon,” says John Thornton, CEO of Astrobotic. “This is the first step in creating an archive of human civilization beyond Earth orbit.”

David Iron, CEO of Lunar Missions Ltd and the founder of Lunar Mission One says, “It was an easy choice to partner with Astrobotic, a global leader in commercial lunar capability. This deal allows us to offer an exciting new way to connect our supporters to the Moon during the early phase of Lunar Mission One’s development. We look forward to unveiling those plans very soon.”

Lunar Mission One is the latest addition to Astrobotic’s mission one manifest, and will be the first payload to enable a digital archive on the Moon.

David Iron, the founder of Lunar Mission One, writes the organization and the Footsteps program: Lunar Mission One: “Let’s All Stand on the Moon Together” – David Iron/Huffington Post

Most people watching the Moon landings in 1969 thought they would never make it to the Moon… but it’s time for a re-think. The astronauts left their prints and the rest of us just dreamed, but Lunar Mission One now intends to make it possible with their Footsteps on the Moon project.

We have secured a digital payload on the Astrobotic Moon Lander, slated for a 2017 launch. On it, we want to take a vast collection of pictures of your footsteps, shoes, wheelchair tracks or however you leave your impression on the Earth, and place them on the Moon. And we will do that for nothing in the hopes that we can take images from every single country on Earth.

In digital form, your footsteps will rest on the Moon, like the iconic boot prints left by the first astronauts, almost 50 years ago.

Follow the latest LMO activities at Lunar Mission One (@LunarMissionOne) | Twitter.

Astronomy, Events, The Moon

Supermoon eclipse tonight

September 27, 2015 TopSpacer 1 Comment

There will be a lunar eclipse tonight that will particularly unusual. The Moon will be at the closest approach (perigee) of its orbit to earth when it can be as much as 14% bigger and 30% brighter than when the Moon is at its farthest distance (apogee) from earth. NASA TV to Provide Live Feed of Sunday’s Supermoon Eclipse – NASA

This video gives a brief description of this eclipse of a Supermoon:

Viewing info:

Sunday’s supermoon eclipse will last 1 hour and 11 minutes, and will be visible to North and South America, Europe, Africa, and parts of West Asia and the eastern Pacific. Weather permitting, you can see the supermoon after nightfall, and the eclipse will cast it into shadow beginning at 8:11 p.m. EDT. The total eclipse starts at 10:11 p.m. EDT, peaking at 10:47 p.m. EDT.

More on times and visibility at September 27 / September 28, 2015 — Total Lunar Eclipse – Where and when to see.

If you cannot go outside and see the eclipse directly, views of it will be available online:

Here’s a tutorial on lunar eclipses: