Last Saturday marked the 50th anniversary of NASA’s Apollo 11 mission and moon landing. The moment capturing Neil Armstrong’s first leap on the moon was stored on reels of magnetic tape, a historical moment that was broadcast all over the world.
According to Sotheby, the auction house, George, an engineering student at Lamar University at the time, was an intern at NASA and frequently went to government surplus auctions. He paid $217.77 for over 1,150 reels of tape that came from NASA.
Over the years George donated most of the tapes, but on his father’s advice kept three of them. These three tapes have a combined run time of 2 hours and 24 minutes, showing the entirety of the moon walk and phone call with then-President Richard Nixon, Sotheby said.
The buyer and current owner of the tapes remains anonymous.
