NEW BRAUNFELS, TEXAS  —  A sale of vintage NASA photography is live on iGavelAuctions.com through October 5. The photography, much of it signed by the heroic astronauts who made history venturing into outer space, is presented by Elder’s Antiques, based in Venice, Fla.

Among the more than 100 rare, historical images on sale are “Apollo 11 Earthrise over the Lunar Surface,  July 20, 1969,” signed by Astronaut Buzz Aldrin ($6/8,000); “Apollo 11 Astronaut Edwin Aldrin descends Lunar Module to Walk on the Moon,” July 20, 1969 ($6/10,000); and “Lunar Surveyor Mosaic. Day 019, Survey M. Sectors 1 and 2” ($6/9,000)

Space photography began as an afterthought. John Glenn, the first American to orbit the Earth in 1962, took with him a camera he bought at a local drugstore and retrofitted so that he could better control it in a spacesuit. That modification was the birth of a new genre of photography that would bring images of space to Earth for the first time.  

When space photography was first pioneered, it was not without technological and political complications. With the Cold War between the United States and Russia as the catalyst for the Space Race, many feared that taking photographs in space would be construed as acts of espionage. Fortunately, the espionage responsibilities fell to satellites as their technology and capabilities were vastly superior to their predecessor, the U-2 reconnaissance aircraft; as a result space photography was relegated to use by lunar probes to help plan the Apollo 11 missions. More than 100,000 photographs later, Apollo 11’s landing sites had been mapped and selected for exploration by man.

For information, www.iGavelAuctions.com or 212-289-5588.