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Still picking yourself up off the floor after reading our recent post about the $152,000 that was paid at auction for Neil Armstrong’s autograph, along with his famous “one small step” quote, written on a sheet of the Apollo 11 flight plan?

Here’s what Armstrong had to say in his 2005 biography by James Hansen about rumors of such a memento:

“The ultimate Armstrong memento, [collector Robert] Pearlman relates, would be a signed picture or letter that includes Neil’s famous quote ‘one small step.’ For years it was believed that no authentic examples of such an item existed. Recently, ‘an authentic example,’ signed while Neil was still in quarantine, surfaced, and though it never sold, many thought it could easily reach $25,000, if not higher. Armstrong categorically denounces any such item as a fake. ‘I know that to be false, because I have never, ever quoted myself. From day one, I never did that. So it doesn’t exist anywhere. Not for my mom, not for the Smithsonian, not for anybody—there is not one anywhere. Not in quarantine or any other time. I never did one.’ “

Armstrong hasn’t given an autograph in years. According to his biography, he signed anything he was asked to for the first fifteen or so years after the moon landing. Then, dealers of collectibles began misrepresenting themselves as school teachers or children, asking for signed photos by mail. By 1993, Armstrong saw that forgeries of his signature were being sold on the Internet, and stopped giving his autograph, advice that Charles Lindbergh had given him in September 1969 at a banquet of  the Society of Experimental Test Pilots.

Nonetheless, Armstrong’s autograph, according to Paul Fraser Collectibles of the United Kingdom, is the most valuable in the world, and fetches more than $7,500 these days. Here’s Fraser’s top ten list:

10. Mick Jagger

9. Pele

8. Madonna

7. Bob Dylan

6. Muhammad Ali

5. J.K. Rowling

4. Queen Elizabeth II

3. Paul McCartney

2. Tiger Woods

1. Neil Armstrong

"Where do I sign? Not." The Apollo 11 crew arrives at the White House at the conclusion of their 45-day Giant Step Presidential Goodwill Tour, November 1969. Photo: NASA

“Dear Mr. Taxman: I’m sorry I missed the deadline. I was, uh, hmm, in a spaceship flying to the moon?”

On the evening of April 15, 2010, the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum’s John H. Glenn lecture series honored four legendary men of Apollo 13 on the 40th anniversary of their hair-raising flight: commander Jim Lovell, lunar module pilot Fred Haise, originally-assigned command module pilot Tom Mattingly, and flight director Gene Kranz.

From left: Fred Haise, Jim Lovell, Tom Mattingly, and Gene Kranz at the National Air and Space Museum, April 15, 2010. Photo: Mark Avino

Kranz and his Mission Control team brought the crew safely home against tall odds after an oxygen tank on the outside of the spacecraft exploded and turned the mission into the worst inflight crisis of the lunar program. Despite the aborted moon landing, Apollo 13 ranks with Apollo 11 and Apollo 8 as one of NASA’s finest hours, often called “The Successful Failure.”

The mission seemed hexed from the start. Just days before launch, the crew was exposed to the German measles. Mattingly, who carried no antibodies against the infection, was bumped on the possibility that he might develop measles during the flight. He was replaced by backup command module pilot Jack Swigert. Mattingly would fly to the moon on Apollo 16, and later commanded two space shuttle flights.

Jack Swigert helps jury-rig the "mailbox," the lithium-hydroxide cannister contraption needed to purge carbon dioxide from the air inside the lunar module, which was used as a lifeboat to get home. Photo: NASA

Swigert, who died of cancer in 1982, had 72 hours to get his head around the fact that he had just gone from an observer to a prime crew member, about to take his first rocket flight, and orbit the moon 240,000 miles away. A bachelor, he was on his own for any last-minute, to-do items at home. He launched with Lovell and Haise on April 11, 1970.

The first two days unfolded smoothly. “Let me mention something that happened just before the explosion,” said Lovell at the Museum event, suppressing a grin. “And it concerns Jack Swigert. Things were working pretty nicely. The spacecraft was working perfectly. My two rookies were really doing a great job. And suddenly Jack looked  at me and his face was white. And he said, ‘Uh, when are we getting back to land, back on the Earth?’ I said, ‘Well, we’re scheduled to land on the 21st.’ ‘When do we have to pay our taxes?’ I said, ‘Tax day is the 15th.’ He said, ‘I got on board this thing—I forgot to mail my taxes in!’ We all had a big laugh, of course. And he says, ‘I’m serious, they could put me in jail!’ And the word got down to the control center, and everybody was laughing themselves silly, until finally someone called up and said, ‘Listen, I think the president gave you a little relief because you’re out of the country.’ ”

"It says, 'Subtract the amount on line 39, Form 1040, from...' " (L-R) Lovell, Swigert, Haise review data on the first day of their post-flight debriefing at the Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston, April 20, 1970. Photo: NASA

Apollo 13 Lunar Module contingency checklist. Courtesy of Bonhams New York.

“Well I can’t say that this thing hasn’t been filled with excitement,” said astronaut Jim Lovell as Apollo 13′s crew crowded into the Command Module Odyssey—following the explosion of an onboard tank in the Service Module—and headed back to Earth. CapCom immediately joked, “Well, James, if you can’t take any better care of a spacecraft than that, then we might not give you another one.”

Exactly 40 years after the events of Apollo 13, Bonhams held its annual space history auction. Included in the 290 items auctioned were the flight notes of Jim Lovell and Fred Haise (left), used during their nerve-wracking return to Earth. The notes, which sold for $45,750, include such reminders as “Turn LM up link squelch off” (written in red ink by Lovell), and comments about various circuit breakers (written in black ink by Haise).

Apollo 11 flight plan. Courtesy of Bonhams New York.

The auction also included memorabilia from Apollo 11, such as this flight plan (right), which was signed by Neil Armstrong on August 9, 1969, while the crew was in quarantine after splashdown. The sheet, which sold for $152,000, includes Armstrong’s famous quote: “One small step for a man—one giant leap for mankind.”

When Bob Hope took Neil Armstrong to Southeast Asia with the USO Tour a few months after the Apollo 11 moon landing, the troops at each show gave the astronaut and former Navy fighter pilot standing ovations whenever he walked on stage.

Armstrong will travel abroad again to bolster troop moral, this time with Armed Forces Entertainment, in association with Morale Entertainment, for the Legends of Aerospace Tour, March 3 to 13, 2010. The first man on the moon will be joined by the last man there, Gene Cernan, who orbited the moon on Apollo 10 and commanded the Apollo 17 landing; and Jim Lovell, who journeyed to the moon on the first orbital mission, Apollo 8, and commanded the Apollo 13 mission that was forced to abort a landing.

This will mark the first time the three astronauts will have traveled together on a goodwill tour, though Armstrong and Cernan have been friends since attending Purdue University together in the early 1950s. They’ll be joined by two more flying legends, test pilot Bob Gilliland, the first man to fly the Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird, and Vietnam veteran Steve Ritchie, the last U.S. Air Force Pilot Ace.

Media personality David Hartman, the first host of “Good Morning America,” will moderate panel discussions with the pilots and astronauts at some stops, along with author Jeffrey Kluger, senior writer for Time Magazine and co-author with Lovell on the book Lost Moon, on which director Ron Howard based the film Apollo 13.

The tour will log more than 15,000 flight miles to bring the men in contact with more than 10,000 troops. American Airlines will provide the round-trip, trans-Atlantic transportation. The show will make stops in Southwest Asia (specifics aren’t being released for security reasons), and visit wounded troops at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany on the way back, before returning to a welcome home event in New York at The Intrepid Air & Space Museum on Saturday the 13th.

“I have been waiting my whole life for this opportunity to meet with our service men and women on the front lines,” said Jim Lovell. “They are the real heroes. I’m truly looking forward to thanking them for their service in person and sharing some of my experiences with adversity during Apollo 13. I’m sure it’s going to be an extraordinary experience.”

NASA is honoring former astronaut Fred Haise on December 2 with their Ambassadors of Exploration Award, given out every few months in recent years to the first generation of explorers who made the moon landings happen.

Haise is usually remembered as one of the three astronauts, along with Jim Lovell and Jack Swigert, who barely got home in the Apollo 13 scare. That was his only flight into space.

What many people don’t realize is what a golden boy he was in the Apollo program: He would  have walked on the moon with Lovell; was backup lunar module pilot for Apollos 8 and 11 and was inside the Apollo 11 command module early on the morning of the launch configuring the control panel for Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins, as well as the last person to see them before pulling his head out and closing the hatch; was backup commander for Apollo 16; commander of the canceled Apollo 19; and commander of five drop tests of the space shuttle Enterprise in 1977. Check out this video of the first landing of a space shuttle, with Haise at the controls. Stick with it past the 3:30 mark for some very groovy 1977 color from an audience that watched in a TV studio.

Haise was also scheduled to command the second orbital flight of the space shuttle, which would rescue the Skylab space station and bring it home. Delays in the shuttle program made this impossible. The station entered Earth’s atmosphere in 1979 and was destroyed. Haise retired from NASA in June 1979.

Here’s a video of Haise talking about his work on the Apollo lunar lander (look on the right side of the page for the video “A Very Unusual Machine.“)

NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden, who later flew the space shuttle in orbit four times, twice as commander, will present Haise with the award at Gorenflo Elementary School, which Haise attended, in his hometown of Biloxi, Mississippi. The award consists of a chip of moon rock encased in Lucite for display. Haise will then present the award to Paul Tisdale, superintendent of the Biloxi Public School System, and Tina Thompson, the school’s principal, where it will go on permanent display.