Apollo Artifacts

Apollo 17 lunar module flown RCS / Common cue card

David Meerman Scott — Tue, 14 Oct 2025 20:46:11 +0000

Apollo 17 lunar module flown RCS / Common cue card

This cue card directly from the Gene Cernan collection was flown to the lunar surface on 17 aboard the spacecraft Challenger and spent time on the moon in the Taurus-Littrow valley during the last Apollo lunar landing mission in December 1972.

The RCS / COMMON cue card would have been used if the astronauts had experienced a Reaction Control System failure in the Lunar Module during the mission. It contains failure indications, workarounds to solve for failures, and other operating information about the RCS system onboard the Lunar Module.

Cue cards like this one are critical to allowing the crew to react quickly and accurately to contingencies that arise during the mission.

Jim McDivitt’s Apollo 14 LRL badge

David Meerman Scott — Tue, 14 Oct 2025 20:21:18 +0000

Jim McDivitt’s Apollo 14 LRL badge

Jim McDivitt, who was Commander of Apollo 9, became Manager of the Apollo Spacecraft Program in August 1969. He was the program manager for Apollo 12, 13, 14, 15 and 16 missions.

This is his badge for gaining access to the Lunar Receiving Laboratory in Houston, TX for the Apollo 14 mission.

The LRL was where astronauts were quarantined and material returned from the moon was brought. After the Apollo 14 mission, it was determined that exposure to lunar dust was not hazardous to life on earth, so the astronaut quarantine procedures were discontinued, although lunar samples were still processed in the LRL for the remainder of the Apollo program.

Kennedy Space Center access badges for the Apollo 16 mission

David Meerman Scott — Tue, 14 Oct 2025 20:18:12 +0000

A collection of twelve badges that were previously owned by a 34-year KSC security guard. These badges were used as prototypes and for identification purposes. Several are astronaut badges.

KSC launch badges

David Meerman Scott — Sun, 28 Jan 2007 10:35:59 +0000

These interesting plastic launch badges denoted various levels of access to Kennedy Space Center locations during the launch of the Apollo Saturn I and Saturn V vehicles.

Apollo 13 launch viewing pass

David Meerman Scott — Sun, 21 Jan 2007 16:35:02 +0000

Special guests who were invited to watch the launches of the Apollo program from a special viewing area were issued passes. These lucky few were entitled to be at a spot that was as close to the launch as one could safely get. I have a launch viewing pass from each Apollo mission in my collection.

With Apollo 13 on April 11, 1970, Saturn V launches became almost routine. Nobody who witnessed the liftoff that day could have anticipated the drama that would soon unfold.

Apollo 11 launch viewing pass

David Meerman Scott — Sun, 21 Jan 2007 16:33:52 +0000

On the other missions, the passes were rather ordinary. But with the launch of Apollo 11 on July 16, 1969, the first lunar landing attempt, NASA dressed up the launch viewing passes and for the first time wrote on the pass: “After launch, it may be kept as a souvenir of the mission.”

Press passes to cover the Apollo 11 launch and activities at mission control

David Meerman Scott — Sun, 21 Jan 2007 16:32:20 +0000

These interesting passes issued to Fred Cambria from CBS Television entitled him to cover the launch from Kennedy Space Center and then cover the mission as it unfolded from the NASA Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston.