The handbook used by American astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin for their historic moon landing 50 years ago fetched $5million (more than R72m) at Christie’s One Giant Leap: Celebrating Space Exploration 50 Years after Apollo 11 auction on July 18 in New York.
The manual was placed between the two men as Armstrong uttered his historic first words back to US Mission Control after landing on the moon on July 20, 1969: “Houston, Tranquillity Base here. The Eagle has landed."
Within moments, Aldrin had written the space module Eagle’s coordinates in the Sea of Tranquillity on page 10 of the book.
The Timeline Book narrates the entire Eagle voyage from inspection, undocking, lunar surface descent and ascent to the rendezvous with fellow astronaut Michael Collins aboard the command module, Columbia, in lunar orbit.
The book contains nearly 150 annotations and checkmarks made by Aldrin and Armstrong and traces of what appears to be lunar dust on the transfer list pages.