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.
* 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.
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.
>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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I don't know much about Jurvetson (apart from him being a VC) but his passion, enthusiasm, and deep knowledge of each of these items in the video is infectious.
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.
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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.
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.
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.
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.
Instead, we make sure we have billionaires.
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
kid in a candy store
Back in the Sixties the Russians already had two secret space stations in orbit with working machine guns: https://youtu.be/4FOF0f70Hoc?t=408
Very cool stuff.
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.
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.
But his collection of space things? Oh, I'm green with envy!
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