From right, Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins and Buzz Aldrin on their way to Kennedy Space Centre's launchpad in July 1969. Photo / AP
Last fall, Neil Armstrong's two sons began a round of media appearances to promote a venture that would make them millions of dollars: a series of auctions of about 3,000 mementos from their father's moon mission and Nasa career.
"One Giant Sale" was CNBC's headline, playing on the astronaut's famous line, as Mark and Rick Armstrong talked up the items — an American flag that had flown to the moon on Apollo 11; a flight suit their father had worn earlier in his career; and many possessions that had nothing to do with space, including Armstrong's childhood teddy bear and a preschool report card he signed.
"You just hope that people get positive energy from these things," Mark Armstrong told CBS This Morning. He told The New York Times they had "struggled with" what their father might think of the auctions. "Would Dad approve? Let's see what positive things we can do with the proceeds," he said.
The auctions would prove lucrative amid the rising wave of publicity leading up to the 50th anniversary of the moon landing this month: US$16.7 million ($25 million) in sales to date. The Dallas auction house calls the memorabilia the Armstrong Family Collection, though it includes a small number of items from other sources, including astronaut Buzz Aldrin. Another auction, the fourth, is set for November.
Those sales by the brothers, who also pursued a newly disclosed US$6 million ($9 million) wrongful death settlement over their father's medical care, have exposed deep differences among those who knew Neil Armstrong about his legacy — and what he would have wanted.
Some relatives, friends and archivists find the sales unseemly, citing the astronaut's aversion to cashing in on his celebrity and flying career and the loss of historical objects to the public.
"I seriously doubt Neil would approve of selling off his artifacts and memorabilia," said James R. Hansen, his biographer. "He never did any of that in his lifetime."
The astronaut had stopped signing autographs in 1994, after he discovered that many of those requesting his signature were then selling them. His personal lawyer, Ross Wales, said his client resisted the idolatry focused on his signature and possessions in part because he considered himself only the frontman for a huge Nasa enterprise.
"His feeling was that he was not special because he was the first person to walk on the moon, and that he wouldn't have done it if it weren't for the thousands of people who worked on the mission," Wales said.
By contrast with the astronaut's sons, Carol Armstrong — his second wife, whom he married in 1994 after a divorce initiated by Janet Armstrong, Rick and Mark's mother — is not known to have sold anything. Instead she has lent and donated a collection of memorabilia to the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum in Washington; such loans often convert to donations in an arrangement intended to avoid gift taxes. People who know her say she and her adult children, Andrew and Molly, believe her husband would have opposed the commerce in the trappings of his work and life. (Carol and her children declined to comment.)
Mark Armstrong said that the question of what's best for posterity and what his father might have wanted is not so simple. He said that he and his brother had already donated to museums more than US$500,000 ($753,500) in cash and artifacts worth about US$1.4 million ($2.1 million), and that they had lent items worth several million more.
But he said donations, which offer the donor tax benefits, do not guarantee public access. "Museums can choose to store items out of sight or unilaterally decide to sell them," he said in an email forwarded by his wife.
As for his father, Mark said, "I think he would judge us not on whether we auctioned items or not, but rather what we do with the proceeds and how we conduct our lives. Dad said that he wanted to leave the world a better place than he found it. I intend to follow his example and teach my children to do the same."
Mark and his wife, Wendy, said they were using auction proceeds to create an environmental nonprofit in honour of Mark's parents, called Vantage Earth, that Wendy said would work "to preserve and protect the Earth from the damage done to it by its own population — a concern raised by Neil upon looking back at the Earth from the moon."
Tensions are common in any family affected by divorce. When it is the family of the first human being to step onto the moon, with global fame and a large estate, relations get only more complicated.
After leaving Nasa in 1971, Armstrong taught aerospace engineering at the University of Cincinnati, served on multiple corporate boards and accepted speaking fees, accumulating a fortune worth many millions. But he turned down many opportunities to make even more money, friends say.
At the time of his death, most of Armstrong's assets, including the memorabilia, were left in a trust, the beneficiaries of which could not be determined by The Times. His sons may have received some items from their father through the trust, and they received other keepsakes when their mother died in 2018, according to Wendy Armstrong. The first auction was held five months later.
Strains between Armstrong's first and second families came to a head after his death in 2012, at age 82, of complications after heart surgery. The Times reported this past week that Mercy Health-Fairfield Hospital, outside Cincinnati, had secretly paid the family US$6 million to settle a claim that his treatment had been deficient. The family also sought changes in hospital protocols to prevent such deaths in the future.
Papers sent anonymously to The Times described how the removal of pacemaker wires installed during surgery had caused bleeding that could not be repaired quickly because no cardiac surgeon was on duty. The resulting loss of oxygen to Armstrong's brain left him in a vegetative state; he died 11 days later after life support was withdrawn.
While there was some friction over when to remove life support, the real clash came later, over the medical malpractice claim, which the sons pushed for and Carol, his widow, declined to participate in.
"In the end, strong feelings ripped apart Neil's loved ones over the hospital's handling of Neil's care," said Hansen, who became close to the family while writing his 2005 Armstrong biography, First Man.
Hansen called the medical crisis "a terrible, traumatic situation" made worse by the fact that "Neil essentially had two distinct families that were not, if they ever had been able to before, thinking and feeling as one."
Carol Armstrong, who knew her husband had considered the cardiologist a friend, "felt strongly that Neil would not have wanted her to sue the doctors or the hospital — he would not want anyone to take advantage of his name in such a way," Hansen said.
Court records show Carol Armstrong as receiving "zero — not participating," by her own choice. Neither did her children, the astronaut's stepchildren, seek any payment.
Mark Armstrong, a 56-year-old retired software engineer, and Rick, 62, a onetime animal trainer who has a software consulting business, got the bulk of the hospital's payment, about US$2.6 million apiece. Neil's surviving brother and sister got US$250,000 each, and the six children of Rick and Mark got US$24,000 each.
One court filing in the case, by a lawyer arguing for a greater share for the grandchildren, discussed the uneasy equation between familial relations — even love — and cold cash. While acknowledging that Armstrong's siblings might get a larger payment because "they loved him the longest, depended on him the most" and found his loss "most painful," the lawyer, Bertha G. Helmick, wrote that the "opposite is equally true."
"The minor grandchildren, having had the least time with Decedent, have suffered the greatest loss of time, attention, protection, advice, guidance, counsel and affection."
The grandchildren, she wrote, "lost their universally beloved and revered grandfather, who could magically open any door, innocently pave ways into college admissions, and who would have always carried a de facto hero element to any school or athletic or workplace function."
Rick and Mark Armstrong, represented by Mark's wife, Wendy, a lawyer, got the settlement after threatening to announce their concerns about their father's treatment at a gathering at Kennedy Space Centre for the 45th anniversary of the moon shot.
The brothers would use the 50th anniversary this month for a different kind of leverage. They were far from the first to sell an astronaut's possessions — Heritage Auctions in Dallas has sold such collections for 20 other astronauts and their families, said Greg Rohan, the company's president. But none had the status of Neil Armstrong.
"This is really the holy grail," Rohan said in a promotional video.
"Neil Armstrong holds a special place in the space history enthusiasts' world," said Robert Pearlman, editor of CollectSpace.com, a website devoted to space memorabilia.
The prices reflected that reverence. Items fetching the highest prices tended to be those that travelled with Armstrong to the moon, such as a rare gold medal that sold for US$2.04 million ($3.07 million) this month — the highest price in the lot. The American flag that had flown aboard Apollo 11 got US$275,000 ($415,000).
Personal items, from Armstrong's own childhood and early years of parenting, also sold well. The teddy bear sold for US$3,500 ($5,200). A letter that Armstrong wrote to the Easter bunny as a child, asking it to "please hide our baskets" and signed "Neil," sold for US$4,000 ($6,000). A postcard sent to his parents from Paris in 1962 ("Having a fine time and not working too hard," it reads) went for US$1,375 ($2,071). The preschool report card Armstrong signed for his son Mark went for US$750 ($1,130).
Even Armstrong's personal collection of magazines and vinyl records — most bearing no relation to his journey to space, such as his copies of The Family Handyman and Sports Illustrated — found buyers, mostly for US$200 ($300) or less.
Many of the items sold at auction — ranging from photographs in his spacesuit to personal checks — included Armstrong's handwriting and signature, though he'd been loath to see his autographs sold when he was alive.
"He went out of his way not to make his signature available," said Wales, the lawyer, who worked for Armstrong for more than a decade. "He realised that, yes, there were young kids who just thought it was great to get an autograph, but there were young kids who had parents who went about taking their kids' autographs and selling them. He just didn't like to be made a fuss over."
In 2005, Armstrong learned that a barber had sold his hair clippings to a memorabilia collector for US$3,000 ($4,500). He directed Wales to propose that the barber either "return the hair to Mr. Armstrong" or "donate, to a charitable organisation of his choice, an amount equal to the proceeds you realised on the sale of his hair."
In a letter to the barber, Wales cited a 1998 Ohio law that bars the unauthorised use of someone's persona for profit, either while they are that person is alive or for 100 years after his or her death. The astronaut John Glenn, also an Ohio native, had urged the state legislature to pass the law. Armstrong felt similarly, Wales said.
When the first auction approached last year, archivists at Purdue University, Armstrong's alma mater, issued a mild public protest. In a letter to The Times, the archivists noted that Neil and Carol Armstrong had donated more than 400 boxes of his papers to Purdue, where they had been consulted by scholars and students; used to produce books, dissertations, films and exhibits; and included in a dozen courses.
"Auctioning off historical treasures into private hands at the expense of providing access to the public is problematic," they wrote. "Archives exist to make the remnants of history accessible and long lasting so that current and future generations have access to them."
Pearlman, of the space memorabilia site, who said he corresponded with Armstrong before his death, said he understood the mixed feelings about such auctions, despite his own avid interest in collecting.
"I understand those who frown upon selling these items," he said. "But what do you do with them?" He said there was no perfect path for such an inheritance.
"I can't say Neil would or wouldn't have wanted these auctions to happen," Pearlman said. "I can say I don't think there's a clear right or wrong here."
Written by: Scott Shane, Sarah Kliff and Susanne Craig
© 2019 THE NEW YORK TIMES
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