The Contingency Sample (2010)
Completed 2010, textured acrylic with moondust on aircraft plywood, 13" x 9 7/8"
$24,800 -- SOLD

Astronaut Neil Armstrong is moving out into the sunlight to scoop up the very first bag of rocks and soil that we humans would pick up on another world. Collecting these samples is Neil's first planned task once he gained his balance and could move about on the lunar surface. The whole idea is to insure that if something were to go wrong early on, and Neil had to quickly return to the lunar module, he and Buzz Aldrin would have some moon rocks safely inside for the 240,000 mile journey back to planet Earth.

Neil is carrying in his left glove the contingency sample collector. This tool is composed of a light metal collapsible rod with a small Teflon bag anchored at one end. The empty sample bag with collapsed handle had been stowed inside the strap on pocket on Neil's left thigh before he had descended the LM ladder to utter the immortal words "this is a small step for a man, but a giant leap for mankind."

Now with all of us watching and listening on earth satisfied, it was time to get to work.

Neil will scoop up the lunar material in a number of sweeping, fish net style, motions. Neil would later say, as he was filling his contingency sample bag, "it's a very soft surface, but here and there, when I dig in with the contingency sample collector, I run into a very hard surface that appears to be very cohesive material of the same sort. I'll try to get a rock in here ... here's a couple."

When the bag is sufficiently full he will remove the bag, fold over the open end of the Teflon bag, and return it to his thigh pocket, "with some difficulty," he would later remember. With the contingency sample now stowed safely away he will have done the single most important thing he could do scientifically on the Apollo 11 mission.