Answer: Life Insurance

You can purchase insurance for just about anything under the sky if you’ve got enough money to burn—insurance for your vintage book collection, insurance for your famous radio voice, and so on. But what about when it comes to getting insurance for more out-of-this-world endeavors? When it came time to get life insurance to protect their families in the event of their unfortunate demise, Apollo 11 astronauts found that any insurance package they could find was astronomically expensive given the enormous risks they were undertaking traveling in Earth orbit and to the Moon.

In lieu of proper life insurance, the Apollo 11 crew banked on their fame to offer financial security to their families. Before the launch of the Apollo 11 mission, they signed hundreds of envelopes adorned with Apollo postage stamps and other Apollo mission iconography. The envelopes were all post-marked the day of the launch and divided among the families to sell off in the event the men didn’t return home. Thankfully, all of the Apollo astronauts returned safely to Earth and the autographed envelopes lived on not as a life insurance payout, but as highly collectible space race memorabilia.