Space oddities: NASA and space collectors descend on museum for rare, vintage memorabilia
Propping up his one-of-a-kind photograph, Carleton Bailie pointed out dozens of comet-like fiery fragments showering across Launch Complex 17 after a Delta II rocket exploded in spectacular fashion in January 1997 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.
Bailie — a Canaveral Groves space photographer who estimates he has shot more than 650 launches — captured a unique view of the doomed rocket detonating 13 seconds after liftoff, sending flaming debris raining onto vehicles and buildings.
"I was the only person outside the Air Force or their contractors that had a remote camera within the perimeter fence," said Bailie, who sold autographed sets of prints of the Delta II debacle for $100 during Saturday's Space Collectibles Show and Sale at the Sands Space History Center.
Nestled inside attics and dusty boxes and binders, a veritable mini-eBay's worth of NASA and space collectibles is dispersed among thousands of households across the Space Coast, accumulated by generations of Cape Canaveral workers.
The U.S. Space Force Historical Foundation hosted the collectibles showcase for the eighth straight year, drawing more than 400 attendees and filling the small museum floor with vendors' tables packed with a colorful cornucopia of mission patches, autographed astronaut photos, challenge coins, books, clothing, vintage toys and more.
Space memorabilia ran the gamut from fact to fiction. For example, Bailie offered a $15 "Lost in Space" plastic model kit featuring a furry Bigfoot-like cyclops monster hurling a large boulder at the silver-suited Robinson family.
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A few feet away sat a $20 NASA Payload Information Handbook (Contract NAS10-11400) used by space shuttle technicians. Punched for a three-ring binder, the thick handbook was loaded with complex jargon and diagrams.
Another vendor offered 1980-vintage numbered copies of NASA's master plan for the George C. Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. Cost: $50.
“A lot of this stuff comes from local space workers who pass on. And their kids go, ‘We don't know what this stuff is. Dad could never tell us what he was doing. So we don't even have any clue what this is,’ " Bailie said.
"It might be something worth 50 cents. It might be worth $5,000. It's kind of a crapshoot," he said.
Julia Bergeron, a volunteer docent at Sands Space History Center, describes herself as "a child of the Challenger era." With SpaceX's accelerated launch cadence at the Cape, she said the company's memorabilia now ranks among collectors' hottest items.
"SpaceX merchandise is a little harder to find. And what you're finding is a little bit older, earlier in their history," said Bergeron, who lives in Titusville.
Also in demand: artifacts from NASA's space shuttle program, which debuted with Columbia's first launch in April 1986 and ended 135 missions later with Atlantis' final spaceflight in July 2011.
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"Locals around here still say, 'A shuttle's going up today' — even thought it's a rocket. It's just so much a part of our culture. And people are picking up what they can while it's still out there," Bergeron said.
"I've bought a box that has old awards. It's like, a generation maybe didn't realize what they had — and it was service awards for people that had been working out on the Cape way back in the early years, during the Mercury and Gemini programs," she said.
"So it's not unheard of to find everything from NASA publications to newspapers. Newspapers are my favorite. They're the most tangible," she said.
Ormond Beach space enthusiast Alan Schmidt drew curious looks by displaying a helmeted 1986 Cabbage Patch Kids Young Astronaut doll — complete inside its original rocket-shaped silvery cardboard box shaped. Offered for $100, the doll included a birth certificate, poster and small U.S. flag.
After selling four vintage Ertl Air & Space toy NASA capsules (still inside their original blue packaging) to an attendee, Schmidt revealed his most-sought vendor items.
"Model kits, such as the Apollo spacecraft, Gemini spacecraft," Schmidt said.
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Ray Sands chairs the U.S. Space Force Historical Foundation. The history center is named in honor of his late father, retired Maj. Gen. Harry J. "Bud" Sands Jr. In 1953, during the dawn of the Space Race, he was appointed deputy for operations of the Air Force Missile Test Center at Patrick Air Force Base. By 1961, he floated the idea of creating a museum dedicated to Air Force space history.
The elder Sands later secured $4 million in fundraising to build a small museum to house artifacts just outside the south gate of what's now Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.
"My dad wanted to preserve all that history, and those artifacts and all those assets. So generations in the future would never forget, always remember, and be able to understand the origins of our space program," Ray Sands said, standing in the history center lobby.
The facility opened in 2010 as the Air Force Space and Missile History Center, and military officials renamed it the Sands Space History Center in 2016. Admission is free, and the address is 100 Spaceport Way. Hours are 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Tuesday thru Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, and noon to 4 p.m. Sunday.
Former Melbourne Beach mayor Jim Simmons logged 33 years of experience in space shuttle and Air Force missile and ground systems, starting in 1979 with Rockwell. He became a technical writer, specializing in writing test procedures for the shuttle RMS arm, or remote manipulator system.
"I wish I had kept more. I wish I had kept more," Simmons said of his old technical manuals, laughing. "And I wrote the shuttle overview that went to all the VIPs before every launch.
"They've got a lot of cool stuff here. It brings back a lot of memories," he said while strolling through the show.
What was it like writing those space technical manuals?
"High pressure. We were always on a very tight schedule. And a lot of red lines — we wore through some red pens," Simmons said of the laborious editing process.
Rick Neale is the South Brevard Watchdog Reporter at FLORIDA TODAY (for more of his stories, click here.) Contact Neale at 321-242-3638 or rneale@floridatoday.com. Twitter: @RickNeale1
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This article originally appeared on Florida Today: Space oddities: NASA, space collectors descend on Cape Canaveral show
