On January 13, a unique NASA artifact goes up for auction. What is it? A topless photo of Ms. DeDe Lind (a.k.a. Playboy's Miss August 1967) that was smuggled aboard Apollo 12. Bidding starts at $1000.
Here's the description from R.R. Auction:
Vintage color calendar photo of Playboy Playmate Miss August 1967, DeDe Lind, which was stowed away in the Apollo 12 command module Yankee Clipper during its November 1969 voyage to the moon. Measuring approximately 4.5 x 6.5, the topless image is an original taken from one of the 1969 calendars published by Playboy and features the month and year of the Apollo 12 mission-November 1969. Prior to the mission, it was affixed to a cardboard cue card and, unbeknownst to the crew, secreted onboard their spacecraft. Normal wear as one would expect from an object that made the approximately 475,000 mile round-trip journey to the moon and back, this flown iconic piece of 1960s pop culture still retains its Velcro strips which were used to affix it inside the spacecraft […]
The ‘flight of the Playboy bunnies' has gone down in astronaut lore as one of the most iconic astronaut pranks. As fellow Apollo 12 astronauts Pete Conrad and Alan Bean explored the lunar surface-with small black-and-white photocopied Playboy images pasted into the wrist cuff checklists of their spacesuits-Gordon was left alone onboard the command module to circle the moon. It was there, in the silence and loneliness of lunar orbit, that he discovered his surprise stowaway crew ‘mate.' This cue card was affixed via Velcro strips to the inside of one of his command module lockers.
It's also worth noting that the winner of this auction will receive a signed photo from Lind that features the inscription, "Pete and Al left me with a great Dick in lunar orbit!" For those of you who aren't in the market for vintage space-nudity, there's a bunch of other NASA memorabilia up for grabs, including an American flag Neil Armstrong took on the Apollo 11 mission.
[Spotted on Nerdcore]