The Apollo Bracelet

On 20 July 1969, the Eagle, the Apollo 11 Lunar Module, landed in the Sea of Tranquillity on the moon, and man took the first steps on our nearest space neighbour. The astronauts had also brought two Hasselblad cameras, with which Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin immortalized the landing and the first human footprint on the moon.

As thanks for the cooperation, the Hasselblad camera inventor Victor Hasselblad and his wife Erna received personal gifts from all the Apollo crews. After each manned Apollo spaceflight one or several items that had been to the moon were sent back to Erna and Victor Hasselblad. The astronauts had, among other things, commissioned a number of coins that they brought on the spaceflights, the so-called Robbins medallions. When the Apollo spacecrafts returned to earth, data on ascent and landing was marked into the coins, and one of them was sent to the Hasselblads in Sweden. The astronauts on Apollo 7, 8, 11, 13 and 17 sent a Robbins medallion to the Hasselblads from each spaceflight. The other six manned Apollo spacecrafts had also brought small gold charms that the Hasselblads had commissioned by the goldsmith Cesons for each Apollo spaceflight. In total six charms in 18kt gold were produced. The crews of Apollo 9, 10, 12, 14, 15 and 16 were entrusted to secretly carry these objects, and after successful flights to the moon the charms were returned to Gothenburg and the Hasselblad couple.

Stuart A. Roosa, command module pilot on Apollo 14, writes in the letter to Victor Hasselblad upon return of the gold charm in the shape of a small camera:

“Dear Victor:

This beautiful camera pin was flown to the moon on the Apollo 14 mission. The mission was launched January 31, 1971 and returned February 9, 1971, having successfully completed a landing in the Fra Mauro region of the moon on February 5, 1971. This pin traveled 1,151,086 miles during the 216 hours, 1 minute and 58.1 seconds of flight. I was most happy to carry this pin for you and sincerely hope we can visit again soon. Sincerely,

Stuart A. Roosa

Lt Colonel, USAF, Command Module Pilot, Apollo 14”

In 1972 the last Apollo spacecraft, Apollo 17, returned from man’s very last visit to the moon. Shortly thereafter Victor and Erna Hasselblad commissioned the goldsmith Cesons to design a bracelet with all the gold charms and Robbins medallions. The bracelet is on display on special occassions.