Buzz Aldrin's Moon Memorabilia To Go Under Hammer in New York

A collection of space memorabilia including notes from the Apollo 11 moon landings signed by astronaut Buzz Aldrin is to go under the hammer in New York.

The auction at Bonhams on Monday 25 March will comprise more than 300 items, including original documents that were flown to the moon in the first manned lunar landing.

The Space History Sale is the first major auction of space artefacts since the US Congress passed a law allowing some astronauts to sell mementoes they had kept from their travels.

The sale will include pages from flight plans, a checklist card and procedure sheets that Aldrin and Armstrong consulted during their lift-off from the moon's surface.

One lot, known as the "Space Magna Carta" and valued at $100,000, is a document that was actually signed in space during the Apollo-Soyuz test programme in 1975, when US and Soviet astronauts docked two capsules in space.

Another lot, two sheets signed by Aldrin and containing instructions to the Apollo 11 crew on how to return to Earth, has been valued at $90,000.

A further item is a checklist from the endangered Apollo 13 probe annotated by astronaut Jim Lovell, with instructions on deploying landing gear scratched out. That mission's planned moon landing was aborted when an oxygen tank exploded.

Aldrin, 83, who landed on the moon's Sea of Tranquillity with Neil Armsrong in 1969, denied rumours that the items come directly from his collection, insisting he is hanging on to his memorabilia.

"I have not auctioned any Apollo 11-related items owned by me for a number of years," Aldrin said. "I do not plan to do so now even though all Apollo astronauts have been authorised by law to own the items we brought back from the moon.

"I have no intention of selling any more of the historical Apollo 11 items in my possession for the remainder of my life. I intend to pass a portion of these items on to my children and to loan the most important items for permanent display in suitable museums around the country.

"The Apollo 11 items being auctioned on Monday are being resold from auctions that took place in 2007 or earlier at the instigation of my ex-wife and her daughter, who acted as my attorney and business manager."

Aldrin was divorced from his wife of 24 years, Lois, last December.

"One extraordinary piece on offer will be a two-page entry from the Apollo 11 log book," Bonhams confirmed.

"Effectively equal to a log entry from Christopher Columbus's voyage to the New World, the log pages were brought to the lunar surface in the Lunar Module Eagle on the first manned lunar landing mission in 1969, making them the pinnacle for any space history collector."