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For Sale: The EKG That Proves Neil Armstrong Wasn't Stressed About the Moon Landing

Don't you think you'd be a bit nervous to become the first person to walk on the Moon?
The Armstrong EKG plaque for sale, via RR Auctions

Despite the years of training it takes to become an astronaut, don't you think you'd be a bit nervous to become the first person to walk on the Moon? Well, you're not Neil Armstrong, who stayed cool as a cucumber as he took his first steps. Now you can own the proof: an EKG printout of Armstrong's heartbeat at the moment he stepped onto the Moon is headed up for auction in about a week.

RR Auctions in New Hampshire will be offering the electrocardiogram printout as part of a massive auction of space memorabilia—artifacts, if you want to sound fancy—dating back to the early Soviet days, including the joystick Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins used in the Apollo 11 command module and a Soyuz thruster.

But the EKG has particular cachet, as it shows just how smoothly Armstrong, who passed away last year after a life out of the limelight, took the historic event. As David Murphy at PC Mag notes, his heartbeat remained steady during the entire descent onto the Moon.

Murphy points to a Guardian profile of Gerald Schraber, the NASA geologist tasked with monitoring the heartbeats of the Apollo 11 astronauts, who says that while Aldrin's heart was racing, Armstrong was so calm that he was able to ad-lib lines for the TV cameras.

"It was really slow on the way down," Schraber said, "while Aldrin's was racing. But that was typical of Neil. Just like the first thing he really said was, 'Houston we have engine shut down here,' really calmly. Mission control told him to he speak again. It was then he said, 'The eagle has landed,' for the TV networks. He was just that cool."

Of course, the quote fudging and EKG itself are evidence of just how advanced NASA's tech was in 1969. I mean, yes, men had just landed on the Moon, which has to be the most-referenced technological milestone ever. But, at the same time, it was so much more than simply launching a projectile at the rock floating around the Earth. That the Apollo 11 crew was in communication the whole time, whether via radio or passive vital sign monitoring, is fascinating on its own.