The First Men in the Moon.
First Edition of H.G. Wells' The First Men in the Moon; Inscribed by Neil Armstrong
The First Men in the Moon.
WELLS, H.G. [Neil Armstrong].
Item Number: 142321
Indianapolis : The Bowen-Merrill Company Publishers, 1901.
First edition of Wells’ classic work. Octavo, original cloth, images by E. Hering. Presentation copy, inscribed by Neil Armstrong on the half-title page, “Best Wishes to Richard- Neil Armstrong.” The first man to walk on the Moon, American astronaut and aeronautical engineer Neil Armstrong joined the NASA Astronaut Corps in 1962. He made his first spaceflight as command pilot of Gemini 8 in March 1966, becoming NASA’s first civilian astronaut to fly in space. During this mission with pilot David Scott, he performed the first docking of two spacecraft; the mission was aborted after Armstrong used some of his re-entry control fuel to stabilize a dangerous roll caused by a stuck thruster. During training for Armstrong’s second and last spaceflight as commander of Apollo 11, he had to eject from the Lunar Landing Research Vehicle moments before a crash. On July 20, 1969, Armstrong and Apollo 11 Lunar Module pilot Buzz Aldrin became the first people to land on the Moon, and the next day they spent two and a half hours outside the spacecraft while Michael Collins remained in lunar orbit in the mission’s command module. Along with Collins and Aldrin, Armstrong was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Richard Nixon. President Jimmy Carter presented Armstrong with the Congressional Space Medal of Honor in 1978, and Armstrong and his former crewmates received a Congressional Gold Medal in 2009. In very good condition. Bookplate in front pastedown. Housed in a custom half morocco chemise and clamshell box. Rare and desirable signed by the first man to touch the Moon’s surface.
The First Men in the Moon tells the story of a journey to the Moon undertaken by the two protagonists: a businessman narrator, Mr. Bedford; and an eccentric scientist, Mr. Cavor. Bedford and Cavor discover that the Moon is inhabited by a sophisticated extraterrestrial civilisation of insect-like creatures they call "Selenites".
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