You guys — Sotheby's just auctioned off a piece of lunar trash that saved Apollo 11, and it sold for $857,600. This isn't just some random collectible; it's the actual circuit breaker switch AND the felt-tip pen Buzz Aldrin jammed into it to get home from the Moon. Picture this: they realize the engine arm switch is broken — you can't touch live circuits with your bare hands without getting fried, so Aldrin pulls a dried-out Duro Rocket brand felt tip out of his suit pocket and plugs it in. That was one click that let them leave lunar surface instead of being stranded forever! He wrote about it decades later and even pointed out the pen was intentionally not metal-tipped because he's an engineer who knows what live electricity does to metal tools — talk about a lucky break becoming legendary. The item has been everywhere: on Fisher Space Pen ads for decades, lent to the Smithsonian's Destination Moon tour through five cities during the 50th anniversary, and even listed in 2022 where it stopped at $650k below reserve before this round. He can legally sell it thanks to a 2012 law giving Apollo astronauts title over their own gear, which is why his family trust could put it up again. It didn't break the all-time record — Bulova astronaut watches hit $1.6M in 2015 and an old Soviet Vostok capsule grabbed nearly $3 million in 2011 — but I don't care because one piece of plastic saved a mission, and that story is just pure heroics disguised as mundane problem-solving.

Source: https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/07/apollo-11s-broken-switch-and-mission-saving-pen-sell-for-860k/