Apollo 11's lunar escape pen sold at Sotheby's for $857,600

The pen used by the Apollo 11 crew to leave the Moon was sold at Sotheby's auction for $857,600, the newspaper The Guardian reported. Along with the plastic pen, the new owner also received the broken circuit switch of the lunar module's engine, the failure of which nearly stranded the astronauts on the Moon. Before liftoff from the Moon, the astronauts broke a critical switch responsible for launching the lunar module's ascent engine. Without it, they would not have been able to take off. Buzz Aldrin used an ordinary felt-tip pen to manually close the circuit and activate the engine. Thanks to this, the Apollo 11 crew successfully left the Moon.