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Jacqui Palumbo and Oscar Holland, CNN<\/p>\n
The jacket worn by retired astronaut Buzz Aldrin when he stepped on the moon sold for a record price of $2,772,500 on Tuesday, less than a week after the 53rd anniversary of the landing.<\/p>\n
The flight jacket features the historic Apollo 11 mission emblem and “E. Aldrin” for his full name, Edwin. It is made of a tightly woven flame retardant silica fiber called Beta Cloth that is used in the production of Apollo space flight suits.<\/p>\n
The sale, which took place at Sotheby’s in New York,<\/a> made the piece the most expensive jacket ever sold at auction, as well as the most valuable American artifact flown into space, according to a statement from the auction house.<\/p>\n The jacket was part of a colloquium of personal memorabilia and historical NASA items from his career and was expected to fetch up to $2 million. The piece was bid on for nearly 10 minutes, according to Sotheby’s. It is the only piece flown from the Apollo 11 mission in private hands: the jackets worn by crewmates Neil Armstrong and Michael Collins are now in the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC.<\/p>\n Aldrin, 92, became the second person to set foot on the moon in 1969, after crewmate Armstrong.<\/p>\n Other items sold included Apollo 11 flight plans, including a full mission brief, which sold for $819,000, more than five times its high estimate, as well as a summary of the Eagle lunar module lander, which sold for $327,600. , more than six times their high estimate. The collection also included a fire extinguisher on board the lunar module, several service medals, including a Congressional Gold Medal awarded to Aldrin in 2011, and a famous MTV Video Music Award “moonman” statuette whose likeness was based on Aldrin.<\/p>\n