A private collector has just paid £2.3million for the jacket worn by the astronaut Buzz Aldrin on his historic first mission to the moon in July 1969.
The bidder paid $2,772,500 for the Apollo 11 Inflight Coverall Jacket, making it by far the most valuable American space-age artefact to be sold at auction, said Sotheby’s, which handled the sale. The unidentified winning bidder, who placed his bids over the phone, came out top during a bidding process that took almost 10 minutes — a long time in auction terms.
The jacket displays the name E. Aldrin above the left breast, with the Apollo 11 mission emblem placed below. The American flag is sewn on to the left shoulder. Aldrin, along with Neil Armstrong and Michael Collins, made up the crew of Apollo 11.
Edwin Aldrin's jacket is made out of Beta cloth, a specially made fire-resistant material used in spacesuits after a fire that killed three astronauts — Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger B. Chaffee — aboard Apollo 1 in 1967.
Buzz Aldrin, now 92, and Neil Armstrong, who died in 2012 at the age of 82, became the first astronauts to walk on the moon, 53 years ago, on July 20, 1969.
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