Space Camp Hall of Fame inductee Robert Pearlmen, editor and founder of CollectSPACE.com, was featured today in a USA Today article about the rising interest in space memorabilia as of late.
Among Pearlman’s prized possessions is a 4-by-4-foot, 200-pound aircraft-grade milled aluminum hatch — one of 40 made for the International Space Station— that sits in his Houston living room. Of the 40 hatches made for the space station at the time, 38 are in space.”I fell in love with flown hardware, not mementos,” Pearlman said.
Robert himself seems to have been in particularly high demand lately with the end of the Space Shuttle program swiftly approaching. And I must say he did a particularly wonderful job with SpaceFlightNow leading up to the launch of STS-135 just the other week.
Update 07/21/2011
Robert was also interviewed by NPR on the same subject. That interview can be heard on their website.