Buzz Aldrin's famous Moon walk photo; 73 other NASA Apollo images sold for Rs 1.3 crore

The historic photographs taken by the first men on the Moon went up for sale on Wednesday in Copenhagen and fetched a combined wealth of over Rs 1.3 crore ($1,72,000). A total of 74 pictures from NASA's Apollo programs were put up for sale by the Bruun Rasmussen auction house and many of them were featured on the covers of National Geographic and TIME. The lot also included the photograph of Buzz Aldrin, the second man to step foot on the Moon after Neil Armstrong, during his spacewalk. 

(Buzz Aldrin photographed by Neil Armstrong on the Moon; Image: Bruun Rasmussen)

The picture above features Buzz Aldrin, who was photographed while walking on the lunar surface, using the Hasselblad camera. All the astronauts in NASA’s lunar missions were equipped with a state-of-the-art camera for photography. This particular photograph was sold for Rs 4.4 lakhs ($ 5,931) and reflects Neil Armstrong in Aldrin's helmet. 

'One giant leap for mankind': Neil Armstrong's message from Moon in 1969

(Photograph of Earth captured by astronaut William Anders; Image: Bruun Rasmussen)

"That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind", these were the words uttered by Armstrong when he transmitted the first message from the Moon in 1969. Lærke Bøgh, Specialist at Bruun Rasmussen said as per the auction house's statement, "It was truly a time of greatness, and there was a sense of incredible accomplishment because we as humans had succeeded in making it to the Moon. Knowing that these are the original photographs taken by the astronauts during the biggest missions of their lives presents a great thrill when looking at them."

NASA's Apollo programs during the 1960s and 1970s aimed to land humans on the Moon and bring them back safely, thus expanding our reach beyond Earth. The other photographs sold at the auction included a photograph of the Saturn V, which was the first rocket to get humans out of Earth’s orbit and towards the Moon in Apollo 8, and a photograph of the last human to set foot on the lunar surface in Apollo 17. It is worth noting that it was the Apollo 11 mission in 1969 when Armstrong along with Aldrin set their foot on the Moon. 

Image: Bruun Rasmussen