Remember the other day when the Internet was a-buzz with the word that a decommissioned UARS NASA satellite was due to break up and fall back to Earth? Scary odds of 3200/1 were being quoted as the chance of some of the broken up debris would actually land on a human. Thankfully though, after much speculation it landed safely in the middle of the Pacific ocean last Friday evening, probably doing no worse than giving a dolphin a bit of a headache.
Well, that got me thinking. I’m into all things to do with Space and my inner-nerd started searching for something I’d recently seen on Fiverr. I recall a Gig which offered a part of an old NASA Space shuttle that had flown to the Moon and back. Sure enough on page three there it was:
Click on the image to visit the gig page.
At first I was disappointed not to see a video on the gig page. I always like to see the seller before making a purchase however, the description was very technical and user unusual had a 100% feedback rating. I checked the shipping options and was happy to pay an extra $4 on top of the Fiverr to get my little piece of Space history.
It’s worth noting that I needed an excuse to purchase this. I’m known to be pretty tight when it comes to buying things so I decided that this could be a birthday present for my girlfriend. “Here, love. It’s a minuscule piece of space shuttle – happy birthday.”
Two days later and it arrived. Pretty quick considering that it came from France. Without hesitation I opened it immediately and exactly as described, there it was. My own little piece of Space shuttle that had been all the way to the Moon and back. It really is small too, I mean, really, REALLY small:
Tiny, but magical!
You know what though? Size really doesn’t matter. I was holding a piece of a real NASA Space history in my hands! Unusual had gone to the trouble of packaging it extremely carefully within several see-through plastic wallets and finally enclosing it between two clear slides. I’m probably going a bit too far with this now, but it was really quite moving to have something from SPACE with such an incredible history in my posession. I wanted to know more as I’m sure you do, so I got in touch with the seller to thank him.
Fiverr user Unusual, aka Gédéon was very accommodating and spent time answering all my questions.
[Where did the foil come from?] “I am a collector of things that have flown into space, especially during the Apollo program. The piece of foil you see in the picture was obtained through Rick Boos, a very well respected space historian and friend of Neil Armstrong’s mother. The pieces of foil were the remnants of foil used by Mr. Boos to make presentations. Since they were already too small to make an attractive presentation, I thought I would cut them into about a hundred specks so that many people could own something that went to the Moon and back for just a few dollars. The specks are extremely tiny but they’re the cheapest space-flown artefacts ever sold.“
WOW, that is a statement. “The cheapest space-flown artefacts ever sold.“ Certainly not a bad catch on Fiverr!
Here’s a picture of the lunar module in space:
“See the shiny silverish surface? That is where your foil comes from. The foil has two sides, one grey, one gold. The grey side was facing outwards on the Command Module.”
“As you surely know, a tank exploded on Apollo 13′s way to the Moon. [I didn't actually know this] The Lunar Module never landed on the surface of the Moon, however, the Command and Service Module orbitted the Moon to use its gravity as a slingshot so that they could return to the Earth before the supplies needed to stay alive would be depleted.“ [Oh yeah, I remember from that Tom Hanks movie!]
“On the recovery pictures, you see mostly gold. That’s because most of the foil was removed by the violence of the re-entry in Earth’s atmosphere. Here is a picture of the Apollo 13 Command Module after splashdown.”
Your piece of foil could be visible on this picture.
[I have to chip in quickly. This is so incredible to read. Am I alone here? Do I sound like a complete nerd? I mean LOOK AT THAT PICTURE! My tiny piece of foil has travelled to the dark side of the Moon ferkrissakes!]
[Tell me more. Tell me more!] “The pieces of foil that I have were remnants of a big piece of foil used to make a presentation. I am usually not a fan of cutting flown artefacts, but since the pieces I decided to cut were already leftovers, I thought I would not commit a sacrilege if I decided to cut it into specks.“
“I thought that it would be neat to let as many people as possible own something of such historical significance for just a few dollars. Holding something that has flown in space -especially during one of the Apollo missions- is still very moving for me, even after years of collecting and nothing makes me happier than sharing this thrill.“ [How cool is this guy, huh?]
“I don’t really know exactly how many fragments I have left, I do not cut them in advance. Perhaps 50. Perhaps a bit more. 100 at the very most. After that, I am done, this was the only foil that I was willing to cut into smaller parts.” [So, people better start ordering quick if they want a slice of this Apollo pie!]
“I heard about Fiverr and fell in love with the concept. I wanted to be part of it. I quickly realized that I would not make much money with my foil, but I thought it would be cool to share one of my passions with as many people as possible.“
“Five years ago, I would have gone nuts if someone told me that I could buy a piece of an Apollo spacecraft for less than the price of a cheeseburger.“
Thank you Gédéon for sharing this with us. I’d like to let you know that my girlfriend turned out to be just as thrilled as I had hoped to receive her little bit of Space. I sincerely hope that many other people out there who dream about Space will take advantage of your offer. I have seen my fair share of incredible Gigs on Fiverr and this is certainly up there with the best of them.
If you’re interested in purchasing a tiny piece of the Apollo 13 module, please visit Unusual’s Gig page here:
http://fiverr.com/unusual/send-you-an-extremely-small-piece-of-the-apollo-13-capsule
That’s one small Gig for Fiverr, one giant blog-post for Fiverr kind. (Sorry, had to).
