The Beauty of Space: rare photographic treasures of early NASA space travel from the Victor Martin-Malburet Collection in Dorotheum online auction

Vienna, Austria - In the online auction The Beauty of Space - Iconic Photographs of Early NASA Missions, which ends on 27 September 2023, the Austrian auction house Dorotheum offers around 200 historic photographs of the US space agency NASA, dating from the very beginning of manned spaceflight in the early 1960s to the mid-1970s. 

A selection of vintage prints collected over a period of 25 years by French space historian and art collector Victor Martin-Malburet can be purchased at auction, with some attractive opening prices, beginning at 100 euros, and with no reserve.

The images, both colour and black-and-white, were originally taken for scientific purposes and most of them were kept secure, stored under lock and key. 

The auction includes important visual treasures from the Golden Age of astronautics, for example the first space selfie, the first human-taken photograph of the Planet Earth, and the first human-taken photograph of the surface of another world. 

An absolute rarity, with an estimate between 15,000 and 25,000 euros, is the only photograph of the first man on the Moon (Neil Armstrong) taken by astronaut Buzz Aldrin during the first lunar landing of the APOLLO 11 mission in July 1969.

Parts of the Martin-Malburet Collection have already been exhibited in renowned museums all over the world, including the Grand Palais in Paris, the Kunsthaus in Zurich, the Museum der Moderne in Salzburg and the Louisiana Museum of Art in Denmark.

You can view the catalogue online here https://www.dorotheum.com/en/a/99412

Where on Earth Can I...?

Where on Earth Can I...? tells you where you can do lots of different, interesting things, all over the world.

It is a fascinating book as it gives you many interesting and fantastic ideas of places you can go and visit and wondrous things that you can do in many different parts of the world.

It is separated into five different chapters. These are:

Natural Wonders
Animal Kingdom
Thrills and Adventures
Great Creations
Out of this World Experiences

There is then a further section on useful travel links, including a list of potentially useful websites.

Although the book is about fantastic and wondrous places you can visit and the exciting things you can do whilst you are there, the really curious thing is that there is not one illustration in the entire book! No photographs! Not even a single, solitary line drawing!

Even though one of the places to visit is described as being: "particularly photogenic". I am sorry, we, the readers, just wouldn't know about that. We haven't seen it, so do not know.

And there is a somewhat puzzling and bizarre omission in a book which is a travel guide. For although the author tells us of the excitement, the wonder and the joy of visiting or participating in -for example- an ancient goldmine, joining the running of the bulls, taking a tree top walk in Australia, staying in a rainforest reserve, seeing a synchronised firefly display, flying in a World War 2 Spitfire, visiting castles, or various film locations, dining in an underwater restaurant, etc., etc., the author -inexcusably, in my opinion, omits to mention the exact locations of these places, opening hours, booking information or even the contact details!

It's a curious book, interesting, but the rather shocking omissions will stop it from becoming a great book and a standard work for travellers, which is a pity.