Weird Crap in Mikes place
Still more weird crap around Chez Mike.
The most casual of space collectors go with the basics, that is, autographs of astronauts, mission patches, and maybe some of the paperweights that have small fragments of a document or insulation from one of the missions. The serious space collectors, the aging baby-boomers with a little extra cash in hand go after hardware. Leftover hardware or someone’s souvenirs collected by dad or grandparents who used to work for NASA in the early days, are a huge draw. At the top of the list you will find spacecraft FDAIs (the “8-ball”) that shows the vehicle’s attitude in space, the DSKY, or Display and Keyboard, that is their computer interface, and hand-controllers. Why those three? Because they are just plain flat-out cool looking.
And they are not cheap. I have seen only a single lunar module hand-controller for public sale, and that from astronaut Dave Scott who piloted his lunar model, Falcon, to the Hadley Rille landing site. That went for about $500K. Should cover the grand-kids braces for a few years.
My lunar module hand-conroller
Unfortunately, my hand controller didn’t fly but it’s relative rarity makes it one of the cornerstones of my collection. Plus it’ll make an awesome gamer joystick if I can ever figure out how the connector works. And learned to like games.
