collectSPACE

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collectSPACE is an online community of space enthusiasts, founded and facilitated by Robert Pearlman.

The website features news articles regarding past, current, and upcoming space events, a listing of astronaut appearances for the calendar year ("Sightings"), a storefront ("buySPACE"), collecting resources, and links to other space-related websites. It also features photos and information about items in Pearlman's personal collection and provides an array of message boards where registered members can discuss the many points of the hobby; buy, sell, or trade items; or simply pose "what if?" historical questions.

Google and Yahoo have ranked the website as the most popular in its category,^[1]^[2] and collectSPACE is cited frequently by the press, including by Forbes,^[3] The Washington Post,^[4] USA Today,^[5] Florida Today,^[6] the Houston Chronicle,^[7] MSNBC.com,^[8] and CNN.^[9]

collectSPACE has also published articles and reviews by noted journalists, authors, and writers, among them Andrew Chaikin ("A Man on the Moon"), Kris Stoever ("For Spacious Skies"), James Oberg ("Red Star in Orbit"), Frederick Ordway III ("Imagining Space"), Francis French ("Into That Silent Sea"), David Hitt ("Homesteading Space"), Russell Still ("Relics of the Space Race"), Colin Burgess ("In the Shadow of the Moon") and Apollo astronaut Walt Cunningham, among others.

Users of the website often abbreviate the website's name to "cS", and members often refer to each other as "cSers".

[edit] Website history

collectSPACE came online on July 20, 1999, coinciding with the 30th anniversary of the first moon landing. The website's original name was to be spacememorabilia.com — for which a logo had already been designed. But that URL was then owned, although not yet in use, by astronaut Pete Conrad, who died unexpectedly in July 1999. Pearlman sought and found an alternate URL — collectSPACE.com.

The original website contained a gallery drawing on the editor's private collection, a calendar of astronaut appearances, a poll question about Hallmark's final space history-inspired Christmas ornament, and a short article about Apollo 11 anniversary toys (written four days before the site came online). The website's original tagline was "memorabilia from the conquest of the final frontier." (It is now "The Source for Space History & Artifacts.") "Sightings," the title for the astronaut appearance calendar, was chosen purposely to divert traffic (and tweak UFO parlance) from a then-popular TV show about UFOs (unidentified flying objects).

collectSPACE covered its first space memorabilia auctions — held at Christie's East (New York) — in September 1999 and then at Superior Galleries of Beverly Hills, California the following month. collectSPACE was the first to webcast space auctions, providing live audio (and one year, video) from Superior's auction floor. Later, the website provided live-hammer results. When the auction houses began working with eBay for live online bidding, these webcasts became redundant and were canceled. On a related note, collectSPACE earned national media attention months after its inception for its role in halting a controversial eBay auction for a moon rock.

The website's message board went online in November 1999. Since its inception, cS has attracted a worldwide audience, with registered members posting from all 50 states, 6 of the 7 continents, and all spacefaring nations. Individuals of note who have made and replied to posts include former EECOM Sy Liebergot, Stephen Clemmons, surviving member of the Apollo 1 ground support crew and witness to the fatal launchpad fire on January 27, 1967, Project Mercury astronaut Scott Carpenter's daughter Kris Stoever, Gemini/Apollo astronaut Pete Conrad's son Pete Conrad, III, National Air and Space Museum (NASM) curator Allan Needell, space historian Dwayne A. Day, Who's Who in Space authors Michael Cassutt and Rex Hall, Kraig McNutt of "Today In Space History," and The Surfaris former bassist Andrew Lagomarsino, among others. A number of astronauts are known to be cS readers.

The first collectSPACE Challenge (contest) was announced in January 2000.

In the wake of the 9-11 terrorist attacks, collectSPACE organized Heroes Helping Heroes, a charity auction benefiting the American Red Cross. In partnership with Yahoo! Auctions, collectSPACE offered bidders the chance to have an item of their choice be signed by one of 22 retired astronauts, who volunteered to participate. Bidding was open for ten days, October 1–11, 2001, during which five autographs from each astronaut were auctioned. $12,686.10 was raised for the relief fund.

Since 2003, collectSPACE has hosted an annual silent auction benefiting the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation. The astronaut experiences and artifacts auction has raised over $180,000 for exceptional college students seeking degrees in science and engineering. Also in 2003, collectSPACE introduced buySPACE, an online marketplace for space history related products and consigned artifacts, in partnership with Countdown Enterprises, Inc.

collectSPACE was nominated for the Houston Chronicle's best blog in their Ultimate Houston Readers Pick for 2005.

In 2006, collectSPACE's buySPACE was selected by Apollo 11 moonwalker Buzz Aldrin to host a sale of memorabilia and documents from his personal archives. Also in 2006, collectSPACE was the first to reveal the name of NASA's next manned lunar-bound spacecraft, Orion. The website was the first to publicize the project logo.