Beschreibung:

SPACE] Large lithograph of the Grumman-designed Apollo Lunar Module signed by dozens of Astronauts, NASA and Grumman Officials and Several Notables . Bethpage, New York and Washington, D.C.: 1972. The color lithograph (a negative of which was carried on Apollo 13) depicts the moon landing module designed by Grumman Aerospace for NASA and is surrounded by approximately 325 signatures in various colored inks including FORTY-THREE APOLLO ASTRONAUTS, various notables, and dozens of Grumman and NASA engineers, officers, and additional personnel. The full sheet 20 x 24 inches (52 x 61 cm); framed. Some toning, extremities with residue and remnants of old tape mounting, most signatures strong but some lightly faded, others lost. A MONUMENT TO THE APOLLO PROGRAM. This remarkable autograph board was conceived and executed by Grumman Engineer Herbert R. Grossman in 1972 as the Apollo program came to a close (the lot contains copies of some documents attesting to this gargantuan effort). Grossman had joined Grumman in 1963 as a member of the Lunar Module Systems Integration Department and from 1965-69 was Chief Engineer for the module at the Kennedy Space Center before becoming Chief Engineer at Grumman's Calverton operation in 1972. Of the surviving astronauts in the Apollo Program (all members of Apollo 1 had died during a test flight in 1967 and because of this Apollo 2 & 3 were cancelled, Apollo 4-6 were unmanned missions), the signatures present here commence from Apollo 7: Walter Cunningham, Don Eisele; Apollo 8: Frank Borman, James Lovell William Anders; Apollo 9: James McDivitt, David Scott Rusty Schweickart; Apollo 10: Thomas P. Stafford, John W. Young, Eugene A. Cernan, L. Gordon Cooper, Jr.; Apollo 11: Neil A. Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, Michael Collins Fred W. Haise, Jr.; Apollo 12: Charles "Pete" Conrad, Jr., Richard F. Gordon, Jr., Alan L. Bean; Apollo 13: Jack Swigert, (Jim Lovell & Fred Haise listed above); Apollo 14: Alan B. Shepard, Jr., Stuart A. Roosa, Edgar Mitchell; Apollo 15: David R. Scott, Alfred M. Worden, James B. Irwin; Apollo 16: John W. Young, Thomas K. Mattingly; Apollo 17: Ronald E. Evans, Harrison H. Schmitt, (Eugene Cernan listed above). Notables include Mercury 7 astronaut Deke Slayton, aviation pioneer Charles Lindbergh, President Richard Nixon, Vice President Spiro Agnew, Florida Senator Edward Gurney and others. Lastly, the board is completed with the signatures of L. Macon Epps, Herbert Grossman and dozens of the devoted Grumman and NASA scientists, engineers and personnel who worked on the decade long project. Impossible to reproduce, this is likely the largest assembly of astronaut signatures to come to market and includes eleven (of just twelve) men to have walked on the moon. C