[HN Gopher] Steve Jurvetson's personal collection of Apollo Luna...
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       Steve Jurvetson's personal collection of Apollo Lunar Module parts
        
       Author : gessha
       Score  : 76 points
       Date   : 2024-05-28 17:03 UTC (5 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.flickr.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.flickr.com)
        
       | iancmceachern wrote:
       | I've seen these personally, I have a bunch of pictures too.
       | Thanks to my friend Jack!
       | 
       | I think the coolest things were:
       | 
       | A piece of the Hindenburg The lunar module computer The big
       | rocket engine with the hand welded cooling tube making up the
       | rocket nozzle. Truly amazing to see the workmanship up close.
        
       | consumer451 wrote:
       | Here is a two-part tour of the collection via Scott Manley's
       | YT.[0] There is more than just Apollo stuff. According to the
       | first video, the most expensive acquisition was a shovel which
       | was used to dig/scoop on the moon.
       | 
       | There is also a request for information about an old Soviet data
       | storage device which neither Steve nor Scott knew anything
       | about.[1] If anyone has any ideas, I'm sure they would appreciate
       | a comment or email.
       | 
       | [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjoSCPIjVwg
       | 
       | [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MK6Fn5iWSHQ
       | 
       | [1] https://youtu.be/MK6Fn5iWSHQ?t=1068
        
         | dmix wrote:
         | I like how excited Steve is explaining this stuff
         | 
         | kid in a candy store
        
       | aftbit wrote:
       | Lots of this stuff has ended up at CuriousMarc's lab, for
       | restoration and archiving. I strongly recommend his YouTube
       | channel if you're into electronics tinkering and/or Apollo.
        
       | mmastrac wrote:
       | CuriousMarc has been repairing some of Steve Jurvetson's pieces
       | on YouTube. Fascinating work.
       | 
       | I hope that this collection finds its way to the public museums
       | in the future where it can be maintained in perpetuity. The
       | current curator seems to care deeply about it and it would be
       | amazing if that continues for future generations.
        
         | nordsieck wrote:
         | > I hope that this collection finds its way to the public
         | museums in the future where it can be maintained in perpetuity.
         | 
         | Public museums are not _bad_ per se, but they have a lot of
         | disadvantages.
         | 
         | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mO6F9CfgMg4
         | 
         | My summary of the argument:
         | 
         | * Modern museums tend to cater to the general public, which
         | means interesting and unique pieces that are of primary
         | importance to experts in the field are often not on display.
         | 
         | * Private collectors are often better at making their
         | collections available in meaningful ways.
         | 
         | * The bulk of a museum's collection tends not to be displayed
         | at any one time.
         | 
         | Of course, it's a risk if he were to transfer his collection to
         | another private individual - a museum is the safer option. But
         | I don't think the decision clear cut either.
        
           | Arainach wrote:
           | >Private collectors are often better at making their
           | collections available in meaningful ways.
           | 
           | Citation very much needed. The vast majority of items in
           | private collections, including the entirety of the vast
           | majority _of_ private collections, are unknown, uncatalogued,
           | and utterly unavailable.
        
             | asddubs wrote:
             | yeah, this reeks of confirmation bias. It's cool that Steve
             | Jurvetson lets CuriousMarc play with his collection to this
             | extent, and what we got out of it has been amazing, but I
             | don't assume this to be the general case.
             | 
             | Counterexample: The AGC they restored was sold and then
             | never heard from again. Of course it must be said that they
             | had the opportunity to restore it to begin with because it
             | was privately owned. Although if you're into vintage
             | computing, you'll see there's also museums who loan out
             | pieces to youtubers to restore/make videos about.
        
           | Animats wrote:
           | Museums have been dumbed down. The Henry Ford museum near
           | Detroit was once aimed at people like Henry Ford, who liked
           | the engineering. Glass cases with "Capacitor, Cornell-
           | Dublier, 1944". That sort of thing. I once spent about
           | fifteen minutes figuring out a piece of machinery which
           | turned out to be a combination camera/kinescope scanner for
           | rotating disk television. It was labeled something like
           | "Scanner, Baird system, ca. 1935". That was dumbed down some
           | time in the 1980s.
           | 
           | The Smithsonian's Museum of History and Technology had some
           | original ENIAC panels, powered up! You could push buttons and
           | make them count. They had a huge collection of clock
           | escapements, which they kept wound. An Atlas Guidance
           | Computer with someone who operated it once an hour. The
           | original Perceptron. Now it's the Museum of American History,
           | and much simplified.
        
           | BryantD wrote:
           | Private collectors can be great, but the risk of collections
           | in private hands being dissolved on death is substantial. I
           | say this as a Seattle native who's been saddened by what
           | happened to Paul Allen's various collections after his
           | passing.
        
       | naves wrote:
       | I've been lucky enough to see in person many of these pieces when
       | they were exhibited in DFJ's offices in Sand Hill Road
       | (~2017-2018). It's an extraordinary collection.
        
         | belter wrote:
         | The tour is amazing: https://youtu.be/4FOF0f70Hoc
         | 
         | Back in the Sixties the Russians already had two secret space
         | stations in orbit with working machine guns:
         | https://youtu.be/4FOF0f70Hoc?t=408
        
       | dgacmu wrote:
       | FV was our seed-round VC, and I snagged a set of photos if anyone
       | wants more -- though they're not nearly as good as Steve's photos
       | in the link above!
       | 
       | https://photos.app.goo.gl/uPBt1z3UnLxoSx9P7
       | 
       | But I really liked the spacex honeycomb lander leg that I didn't
       | see in the flickr set.
       | 
       | It's a truly amazing collection.
        
       | Quai wrote:
       | I'm not a jealous person. I dont want his money.
       | 
       | But his collection of space things? Oh, I'm green with envy!
        
       | sema4hacker wrote:
       | I wish the captions would just stay on instead of fading in and
       | out.
        
       | spoonjim wrote:
       | Crazy that you can sexually harass women and buy up one of the
       | world's amazing collections of space exploration artifacts. Karma
       | is such a laughable concept
        
         | pinewurst wrote:
         | Don't forget shilling for Theranos:
         | https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-10-19/early-the...
        
         | dgacmu wrote:
         | I don't think this is a great place to re-litigate this, but I
         | believe DFJ's investigation found a pattern of affairs, but not
         | harassment.
         | 
         | https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2017/11/18/steve-jurvets...
         | 
         | Which, eh, in my mind, harassment deserves heavy consequences
         | but that also necessitates being careful to differentiate.
        
         | fnord77 wrote:
         | > While there were allegations of inappropriate behavior, DFJ
         | did not receive an official complaint of harassment or
         | misconduct.[28][29] While the findings of the investigation
         | were not made public, anonymous sources alleged that the
         | investigation "uncovered behaviors by Jurvetson that were
         | unacceptable related to a negative tone toward women
         | entrepreneurs.
         | 
         | So anyway, what do you think should happen to him? All his
         | possessions seized? Life in prison?
        
         | stvswn wrote:
         | The only misconduct _alleged_ is that he had extramarital
         | affairs and led women on:
         | 
         | "Those sources said DFJ's external investigators at the law
         | firm Simpson Thacher & Bartlett discovered from at least two
         | women -- who confirmed their accounts to Recode -- that
         | Jurvetson had allegedly carried out affairs with multiple women
         | simultaneously. Some of the women also said they felt led on by
         | the married man and were unaware of the other relationships."
         | https://www.vox.com/2017/11/18/16647078/steve-jurvetson-dfj-...
        
       | fnord77 wrote:
       | "Andy Weir, author of The Martian, holds a Mars rock for the
       | first time"
       | 
       | um...
        
         | mulmen wrote:
         | It's part of a meteorite.
        
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       (page generated 2024-05-28 23:00 UTC)