Description:

Armstrong Neil

Archive includes:

  1. A black and white glossy photo of the full moon, signed by Neil Armstrong in red pen across the moon's surface as "Neil Armstrong / Apollo 11" . Near fine with horizontal crease, probably presented to Beregovoy.

 

  1. Two unpublished black and white photos from Armstrong's visit to the USSR in 1970, capturing Armstrong alongside Beregovoy the Soviet cosmonaut, each 6.5" x 5", near fine with slight rumpling to the paper, with accompanying photograhic negatives.

 

  1. Envelope from Cospar XIII 6.25" x 4.5" near fine.

 

  1. Accompanying LOA from Zarelli Space Authentication.

 

 

Armstrong's visit to Russia in 1970 was arranged through the International Council of the Scientific Union's Committee on Space Research (COSPAR). He was part of a delegation of 32 American scientists and NASA officials and was ostensibly there to present a paper titled "Lunar Surface Exploration" at the 13th COSPAR conference in Leningrad May 20th through May 29th, 1970 (which he also subsequently presented at a conference in Berlin the next year). The official Soviet government response to his visit was luke-warm, and it took 5 days after his arrival to get permission to visit the Kremlin. Most likely, Armstrong's visit was a natural result of the attempts of the heads of both the U.S. and Soviet scientific communities to develop a more cooperative relationship than had characterized the early space race. Several months prior to Armstrong's trip to Leningrad, Thomas O. Paine, (Administer of NASA at the time) had sent his counterpart at the Soviet Academy of Sciences Mstislav Keldysh a copy of two reports on the possibility of creating a more cooperative relationship between the two agencies.

 

In keeping with the spirit of the Space Task Group's report, Paine transmitted copies of it, together with NASA's more detailed report America's Next Decades in Space, to the Soviet Academy of Sciences. In his cover letter of 10 October 1969, Paine told Keldysh that these documents might "suggest to you as they do to me, possibilities for moving beyond our present very limited cooperation to space undertakings in which the Soviet Union and the United States could undertake major complementary tasks to the benefit of both our countries." Their correspondence eventually led to a meeting in New York between Paine and the chair of the Soviet Academy's Commission on Exploration and Use of Space, where Paine mentioned that Armstrong would be visiting the COSPAR meeting. The amiable conversation touched on many subjects. Paine mentioned to his guest that Neil Armstrong planned to deliver a paper at the COSPAR meetings scheduled for 20-29 May 1970 in Leningrad, and Paine said he hoped that Armstrong would have an opportunity to visit some of the Soviet scientific facilities, with the Soviet Response showing interest to have their cosmonauts show their American counterpart their facilities and some of the other space-related institutes.

 

The two fantastic unpublished photos show Neil Armstrong at the time of the visit, alongside Georgy Timofeyevich Beregovoy, the Soviet cosmonaut who commanded the space mission Soyuz 3 in 1968. At the time of his flight, Beregovoy was 47 years of age: he was the earliest-born human to go to orbit. Beregovoy also achieved the title of the Hero of the Soviet Union twice, first time on October 26, 1944 for his military service during World War II, and second time for his space flight. He was the only Soviet cosmonaut who undertook the space flight being the Hero of the Soviet Union (the highest Soviet distinction) for a previous achievement unrelated to space travel.

 

The visit to Russia was believed to be the sounding board that formed the basis for the Apollo-Soyuz program, and as such it is entirely possible that Armstrong's visit was engineered specifically toward the end of fostering goodwill during the tenuous early phases of establishing a scientific relationship.

 

This incredible set commemorates Armstrong's visit to the Soviet Union, our race to space counterpart, and represents the bridge to allow the two countries to come together for their Apollo-Soyuz program. Inclusive of a very scarce signed photo of the moon taken from within a Russian vantage point and signed by Armstrong!

 

 An excellent archive example of space memorabilia  inclusive of an LOA from Zarelli Space Authentication, LLC.

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