ALDRIN, Buzz & McCONNELL, Malcolm. Men From Earth. (Signed by First Edition) (Copy)

New York: Bantam Books, 1989. First edition, first printing. Octavo. xxii, 312pp., with photographic illustrations. Publisher’s blue paper-covered boards backed in black cloth, spine lettered in gilt, in the original pictorial dust jacket. A very good copy, with light wear to jacket and a faint offset of the signature to the facing leaf.

SIGNED BY BUZZ ALDRIN, boldly in black ink on the half-title. Importantly, immediately above the signature is the original Tektronix presentation label, reading: “Courtesy of Tektronix / Committed to Excellence / August 29, 1989 / International Test Conference.”

The Tektronix label considerably enhances the interest and provenance of this copy. The label places the book at a specific professional event on 29 August 1989, within weeks of its publication. This is particularly desirable in astronaut material, where a dated association with an aerospace, engineering or technology event gives a signature substantially more historical context than an ordinary later autograph.

Published to coincide with the twentieth anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon landing, Men From Earth is Aldrin’s sweeping first-hand history of the American and Soviet race to the Moon. Rather than concentrating solely on his own career, Aldrin and McConnell trace the development of rocketry, the competing Soviet and American space programmes, NASA’s Mercury and Gemini missions and ultimately Project Apollo and the first Moon landing. Contemporary commentary described it as an insider’s history of the Apollo programme rather than simply an astronaut autobiography.

On 20 July 1969, Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong became the first humans to land on the Moon, with Aldrin subsequently becoming the second person to walk upon its surface. Men From Earth consequently occupies an important place in Apollo literature: an extensive history of the Space Race written by one of the very few men who personally participated in its defining achievement.

The copyright page retains the complete number line ending in “1,” confirming the first printing.

An especially attractive signed first edition of Buzz Aldrin’s Men From Earth, distinguished by its dated Tektronix International Test Conference provenance from August 1989 — a highly appropriate association between one of the Apollo 11 astronauts and the contemporary American technology and engineering community.

[WR]