Beautiful original painting by NASA suit technician-turned-artist Ron Woods, depicting imagery from iconic NASA photograph ‘AS11-40-5903,’ which shows LMP Buzz Aldrin standing on the lunar surface in the Sea of Tranquility landing site during the historic Apollo 11 mission, with his visor holding the small reflection of the photographer, CDR Neil Armstrong, the first man on the moon. Accomplished in acrylic on Ampersand Gessobord flat panel measuring 18 x 24, the painting is signed in the lower right corner by the artist, “Ron Woods, 2024.” Of additional interest is the presence of two small swatches of Kapton foil that Woods has affixed the landing gear painted near the bottom edge; one attested as flown and deriving from the Apollo 11 Command Module Columbia by aerospace memorabilia specialist Ken Havekotte, and the other attested as being removed from the descent stage of the Lunar Module Eagle mere days before the historic launch of the Apollo 11 mission by both Havekotte and Lee R. Brandt, the lead technician of Propulsion and Environmental controls for Grumman's lunar module support team at the Kennedy Space Center. In very fine condition. The swatches are accompanied by two certificates of authenticity signed by Havekotte.
During the Apollo program, Ron Woods worked for ILC as a suit technician performing suit maintenance, interface testing with the Command Module, Lunar Module, and Lunar Rover vehicles, and insertion of astronauts in Command and Lunar modules for training. He suited crew members for Apollo 8, 11, 15, all Skylab missions, and Apollo-Soyuz. He also supported the first two Space Shuttle missions as a suit technician at KSC and three additional missions at primary and back-up landing sites.
