Apollo 11-era Collectables bring History Home

There were a few iconic images from the Apollo 11 flight which occurred forty years ago this week. We have included a few rare internal images, as well as Apollo 11 commander Neil Armstrong's hometown newspaper's front page dated July 21, 1969.

Apollo collectibles are a great way to recapture the history surrounding the first moon landing flights of humanity. We suggest visiting flea markets or Goodwill centers for older National Geographics or other newspapers from the era.

Snoopy the dog from the Peanuts comic strip became a sort of internal mascot of a few of the Apollo missions. His exploits with the Red Baron in the newspaper allowed him to gain his astro wings on Apollo 10 as the lunar module was named for him.

Another collectible I have is a complete reprint of the Apollo 11 press kit from 1994. The book contains complete details and timelines highlighting the flight. Printed weeks before the 1969 flight, this 25th anniversary reprint outlines crew bios, meals, experiments and more in 250 pages. A great book for any library.

Another thing one can do is pickup rare NASA Apollo crew recordings from the missions via apple.com's iTunes.

For .99 cents to $2.oo each, you can download and save both video and audio to your computer's hard drive and iPod or iPhone.

James holds an actual Snoopy stuffed dog which the author's father gave to Charles in Christmas 1969.