Apollo Spacecraft Acrylic

A very hard to find and long sold out, 10.5" x 3.25" x 1.75" trapezoidal shaped clear display titled "Apollo Spacecraft Collection - Flown Kapton foil from all manned Apollo missions". Inside are diminutive triangular pieces of the famous gold foil, one from each flight. Included is a COA giving a full explanation of the material and the sources of these examples

Included with this lot is a certificate that reads, in full: "I certify that the eleven pieces of spacecraft material encapsulated within the accompanying Historic Space 'Apollo Spacecraft Collection' acrylic block are authentic relics of the outer skin of the actual Command Module spacecraft from every manned Apollo mission from Apollo 7 to Apollo 17.

These spacecraft pieces are an aluminised polymide film that was developed by the DuPont company for NASA and used in the Apollo spacesuits and on the Apollo spacecraft. This metallicised film is called 'Kapton' and often referred to as 'Kapton Foil' due to its metallic foil-like appearance. Kapton foil covered external areas of the Command Module spacecraft as part of the thermal protection and insulation subsystem, and was generally burnt away during the re-entry of the spacecraft to Earth. However, areas of Kapton foil often remained intact on the outer surface of the craft as can be seen in many splashdown and recovery photographs. As a disposable outer layer it was not considered as part of the spacecraft recoverable structure and it was common practise for members, of the Apollo Recovery crews to legally remove pieces as souvenirs of their involvement with the mission.

Each of the fragments in the acrylic block has had direct contact with outer space during the space/light, and has survived temperatures of thousands of degrees during the fiery re-entry to Earth. These Kapton relics have been sourced from larger pieces that I personally subdivided for encapsulation within the acrylic blocks produced by Historic Space for the "Apollo Spacecraft Collection" edition. The originating sources of these pieces are: Mr Dick Williamson of the Apollo Recovery Crew, from Mr Ken L Havekotte of SpaceCoast Covers, and from the Apollo "Rockwell" collection, a collection of flown Apollo relics assembled by a Rockwell employee at the time of the missions. This is "Apollo Spacecraft Collection" acrylic number #1/30 [signed] M J Davies/ Historic Space".

Excellent condition