Friday, August 1, 2008

Apollo 15 Flown Kapton Foil

Here are 2 large pieces of kapton foil that covered the outside of the Apollo 15 command module Endeavor, that carried Dave Scott, Jim Irwin and Al Worden to the moon.

There's a great story about this piece, as with most pieces in my collection. The gentleman who collected this, was in the middle of a bitter divorce, he had bought the tickets for a Hawaii vacation before the breakup and decided to take the trip without his soon to be ex-wife.

While drowning his sorrows in a Honolulu bar, he started talking with another guy at the bar, who it turns out was one of the Apollo 15 recovery divers aboard the USS Okinawa, that had just docked the day before in Hawaii. After making friends with the Apollo recovery diver, this gentleman was asked if he wanted to go see the Apollo 15 command module that was sitting on the hanger deck of the aircraft carrier and he jumped at the chance. The recovery diver took him aboard the USS Okinawa, they went to the hanger deck and in one corner sat this tiny Apollo spacecraft with 1 USMC private guarding it.

The diver told the gentleman to help himself to a piece or 2 of foil, he chipped off a small piece of the heatshield and spent about 10-15 minutes looking inside through the open hatch, while asking questions. The recovery diver then gave this gentleman a Zippo ciggarette lighter with the Apollo 15 insignia shield on it that was presented to him by a congressman, then they left the ship. The diver gave away the Zippo because he didn't smoke and had no use for it.

Notarized letter on file.

No comments: