November 15, 2007 — Within a few feet of the first boot print made on the Moon, under the ladder on which a U.S. flag was stowed and a commemorative plaque is still attached, lies a small white cloth pouch. Inside that bag, next to a couple of embroidered emblems, medals and a gold olive branch, is a small case. Contained within that thin metal sheath is a silicon disc about the size of a half dollar coin. Etched onto that disc, in letters no larger than one-fourth the width of a human hair, are 73 messages.

Such an item, as small as it is, hidden as it was, could be mistaken as insignificant and easily forgotten. And it almost was... twice, as Tahir Rahman, a Kansas-based physician and space history enthusiast reveals in his new book, "We Came In Peace For All Mankind: The Untold Story Of The Apollo 11 Silicon Disc."

Rahman, who as a hobby collects Apollo 11 memorabilia, in particular letters and documents signed by astronaut Neil Armstrong, recently came across a duplicate of the disc deposited on the Moon and became curious as to its history.

"I thought I knew most aspects of the Apollo 11 mission," Rahman wrote to collectSPACE.com. "When I acquired a disc for my collection, I quickly discovered that only a sentence or two was mentioned about it in space history books." So, Rahman set about filling in the missing story.

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