50 Years of Collecting Apollo: A Smithsonian Story

As 2019 marks the 50^th anniversary of the first human steps on the Moon in 1969, this paper takes a broad look at the Apollo artifacts collected by the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum. In the years after the end of NASA’s Apollo Program in 1972, the first artifacts originated with the space agency’s disposition of thousands upon thousands of pieces of hardware, spacesuits, infrastructure, and expendables. A few years later, driven in part by the collecting impetus of the Museum’s new building on the National Mall, commemorative items and participants’ personal effects became a part of the collection. Commercially available memorabilia started to be added to the collection later. Most recently, the personal collections of observers and participants (including Neil Armstrong’s own personal memorabilia) have been accessioned. The author, the curator for the Social and Cultural History of Spaceflight, which includes memorabilia, will argue that these different phases of artifact creation and collecting illustrate the transition of the artifacts’ functions from explanation and testimony, to commemoration, and finally to symbolism.