Neil Armstrong's Widow Discovers Bag of Lunar Landing Souvenirs

Neil Armstrong’s widow recently discovered a white purse in the closet of her Cincinnati home, specially designed for space flight and packed with souvenirs from Armstrong’s moon landing in 1969.

Carol Armstrong reported the historic find to the National Air and Space Museum, which unveiled new details about the bag’s contents in a blog post this week. Among the 20 items Armstrong stowed in the bag was the original 16 mm movie camera he used to record the first steps on the moon, an emergency wrench, a power cable and a helmet strap.

“Odds and ends,” he called them in a transmission to mission control, but for a curator at Air and Space Museum, the items took on a more significant meaning decades later. “It is hard to imagine anything more exciting,” wrote Allan Needell of the museum’s Space History Department.

Read next: Hubble Telescope Spots an Emoticon in Outer Space

Get The Brief. Sign up to receive the top stories you need to know right now.

Please enter a valid email address.

* The request timed out and you did not successfully sign up. Please attempt to sign up again.

Sign Up Now

An unexpected error has occurred with your sign up. Please try again later.

Check here if you would like to receive subscription offers and other promotions via email from TIME group companies.

You can unsubscribe at any time. By signing up you are agreeing to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.

Thank you!

For your security, we've sent a confirmation email to the address you entered. Click the link to confirm your subscription and begin receiving our newsletters. If you don't get the confirmation within 10 minutes, please check your spam folder.

Listen to the most important stories of the day.

Contact us at letters@time.com.