You are bidding on an extremely rare and coveted flown Apollo-series Command Module (CM) Identification Plate, which was aboard the CM Spacecraft No. 118 (Part No. V36-000002-241) used to launch the final crew to the Skylab Space Station.  (See image gallery for a picture of spacecraft No. 118 as docked on orbit to Skylab). As was tradition, the manufacturer of the CM, North American Aviation, installed ID plates on the spacecraft to fly on Apollo, Apollo Soyuz, and Skylab missions. When the capsule returned, NAA officials would remove the ID plates, and create these marble-based, desk-top pen sets for the astronauts as a personal memento of their mission and the spacecraft. This particular flown ID plate comes from the collection of the late astronaut Col William R. Pogue, who was the Command Module pilot on this mission. The ID plate/pen set  comes with images of Col. Pogue with the set, flight certifying the back of it in silver sharpie, a hand signed Certificate of Authenticity, as well as an image of the original Skylab 4 crew taken with the set prior to Col. Pogue's passing. The set comes with the original pens (although the ink has long since been used), which is a rarity for such flown ID plate sets. No other Skylab era ID plate sets have made it to the market, and this set was a treasured part of Col. Pogue's personal collection for over 35 years. A singularly rare, and unique item that bridges the history between the historic Apollo program, and the first US space station on orbit.

About Col. William R. Pogue

William Reid "Bill" Pogue (January 23, 1930 – March 3, 2014) was an American astronaut and test pilot who was also an accomplished teacher, public speaker and author.Pogue was one of the 19 astronauts selected by NASA for the Apollo program in April 1966. He served as a member of the astronaut support crews for the Apollo 7, 11 and 14 missions. He was also scheduled as Command Module Pilot for the canceled Apollo 19 mission. Instead Pogue and Gerald Carr of Apollo 19 went to Skylab, America's first space station.

They also acquired extensive earth resources observations data using Skylab's earth resources experiment package camera and sensor array and logged 338 hours of operations of the Apollo Telescope Mount which made extensive observations of the sun's solar processes. He logged 13 hours and 31 minutes in two EVAs outside the orbital workshop.

Pogue retired from both the United States Air Force and NASA on September 1, 1975. He was self-employed as a consultant to aerospace and a producer of general interest videos on space flight.

Pogue was a member of the Air Force Association Explorers Club, American Astronautical Society and Association of Space Explorers.

ABOUT SKYLAB 4

Skylab 4 (also SL-4 and SLM-3^[2]) was the third manned Skylab mission and placed the third and final crew aboard the first American space station.

The mission started on November 16, 1973 with the launch of three astronauts on a Saturn IB rocket from the Kennedy Space Center, Florida and lasted 84 days, one hour and 16 minutes. A total of 6,051 astronaut-utilization hours were tallied by Skylab 4 astronauts performing scientific experiments in the areas of medical activities, solar observations, Earth resources, observation of the Comet Kohoutek and other experiments.

The manned Skylab missions were officially designated Skylab 2, 3, and 4. Mis-communication about the numbering resulted in the mission emblems reading Skylab I, Skylab II, and Skylab 3 respectively.

The crew arrived aboard Skylab to find that they had company – three figures dressed in flight suits. Upon closer inspection, they found their companions were three dummies, complete with Skylab 4 mission emblems and name tags which had been left there by Al Bean, Jack Lousma, and Owen Garriott at the end of Skylab 3.

The all-rookie astronaut crew had problems adjusting to the same workload level as their predecessors when activating the workshop. Things got off to a bad start after the crew attempted to hide Pogue's early space sickness from flight surgeons, a fact discovered by mission controllers after downloading onboard voice recordings. The crew's initial task of unloading and stowing the thousands of items needed for their lengthy mission also proved to be overwhelming. The schedule for the activation sequence dictated lengthy work periods with a large variety of tasks to be performed, and the crew soon found themselves tired and behind schedule.

As the activation of Skylab progressed, the astronauts complained of being pushed too hard. Ground crews disagreed; they felt that the astronauts were not working long enough or hard enough. During the course of the mission, this culminated in a radio conference to air frustrations. Following this, the workload schedule was modified, and by the end of their mission the crew had completed even more work than had been planned before launch. The experiences of the crew and ground controllers provided important lessons in planning subsequent manned spaceflight work schedules.

On Thanksgiving Day, Gibson and Pogue accomplished a 6¹⁄₂ hour spacewalk. The first part of their spacewalk was spent replacing film in the solar observatory. The remainder of the time was used to repair a malfunctioning antenna.

The crew reported that the food was good, but slightly bland. The crew would have preferred to use more condiments to enhance the taste of the food. The amount of salt they could use was restricted for medical purposes. The quantity and type of food consumed was rigidly controlled because of their strict diet.

Seven days into their mission, a problem developed in the Skylab attitude control gyroscope system, which threatened to bring an early end to the mission. Skylab depended upon three large gyroscopes, sized so that any two of them could provide sufficient control and maneuver Skylab as desired. The third acted as a backup in the event of failure of one of the others. The gyroscope failure was attributed to insufficient lubrication. Later in the mission, a second gyroscope showed similar problems, but special temperature control and load reduction procedures kept the second one operating, and no further problems occurred.

As the end of their mission drew closer, Gibson continued his watch of the solar surface. On January 21, 1974, an active region on the Sun's surface formed a bright spot which intensified and grew. Gibson quickly began filming the sequence as the bright spot erupted. This film was the first recording from space of the birth of a solar flare.

On December 13, the crew sighted Comet Kohoutek and trained the solar observatory and hand-held cameras on it. They gathered spectra on it using the Far Ultraviolet Camera/Spectrograph.^[4] They continued to photograph it as it approached the Sun. On December 30, as it swept out from behind the Sun, Carr and Gibson spotted it as they were performing a spacewalk.

The crew also photographed the Earth from orbit. Despite instructions not to do so, the crew (perhaps inadvertently) photographed Area 51, causing a minor dispute between various government agencies as to whether the photographs showing this secret facility should be released. In the end, the picture was published along with all others in NASA's Skylab image archive, but remained unnoticed for years.^[5]

The Skylab 4 astronauts completed 1,214 Earth orbits and four EVAs totaling 22 hours, 13 minutes. They traveled 34.5 million miles (55,500,000 km) in 84 days, 1 hour and 16 minutes in space.