Neil Armstrong memorabilia fetches US$7.5 million at auction

Memorabilia that belonged to the first man to set foot on the moon, Neil Armstrong, has fetched more than US$7.4 million at auction.

Dallas-based Heritage Auctions says the item that sold for the highest price, US$468,500, at Saturday’s auction was Armstrong’s spacecraft ID plate from Apollo 11’s lunar module Eagle.

Also sold were a fragment from the propeller and a section of the wing from the Wright brothers’ Flyer, the first heavier-than-air self-powered aircraft, which each sold for US$275,000.

The flight suit Armstrong wore aboard Gemini 8, the 1966 mission that performed the first docking of two spacecraft in flight, brought the astronaut’s family US$109,375.