Woman sues NASA for ownership of vial of space dust A woman has sued NASA, claiming to be the rightful owner of a small vial of moon dust supposedly given to her by Neil Armstrong. The lawsuit was filed under the US District Court of Kansas last week by Laura Murray Cicco. She claims that when she was ten, her mother handed her a glass vial with a rubber stopper containing …
If you go and collect your own samples then that is a different matter.
I'd say even by that measure this particular case is a bit muddy. Armstrong DID go and collect those samples and gave one to a friend's daughter. The argument could be made that NASA paid to get him there, but I think - just my opinion - that it'd be a hard sell to say he couldn't get something for himself while he was there in between all the samples he collected for NASA. And if he could get something for himself them he could also give it away.
Not muddy at all.
They went there with an aim to collect materials as part of the mission. As with most companies, if you produce something whilst doing your job the stuff you produce/collect belongs to them.
True, but things are a little different with jobs where you're on the job 24/7 for long periods of time. Think of it this way: if a soldier is on mission someplace exotic and takes a few seconds to collect some sand from the beach in a test tube as a souvenir in between doing other things, does the military own that vial of sand? Of course not. I don't really think that the fact that very few people have been to the moon and had that chance to grab a vial of moon dust changes the situation that much.
He collected samples for NASA and took a few seconds to collect one for himself, as anyone else who has a job they can't leave at the end of the day would have been allowed to. Just because he was paid to go there doesn't mean every speck of everything he brought back automatically has to be the property of his employer.
Yes but no but....
That might work with the grain of sand argument but it's a whole lot different if the soldier brings back a pouch of gold nuggets even if honestly collected. You betya that there would have been military regs about taking anything of value.
Plus a whole sub-genre of war films wouldn't exist :)
Actually the Apollo program, like everything else at NASA, was funded by the US taxpayers, which in my view places moon dust clearly in the public domain.
But even if you take the neoliberal view that everything should be privately owned, regardless of whether it was funded by leaching from the public purse, we're talking about a tiny sample of dust - where NASA already has a vast hoard of lunar material, collected decades ago, then accepted as a gift in good faith.
NASA literally chasing every last speck of moon dust just seems like senseless greed, under the circumstances.
"Actually the Apollo program, like everything else at NASA, was funded by the US taxpayers, which in my view places moon dust clearly in the public domain."
NASA owing it would keep the mood dust in the public domain, since NASA's ownership is itself in the public domain.
This woman owning it would place it in the private domain.
no they dont own the moon. I don´t own the desert in Jordan either but the small vial of purple sand that I brought back with me is mine.
I paid for the transport to get there, I went out a collected it and I brought it home.
I don´t really understand why NASA are being so up tight about this though, maybe to discourage further resales of things that they made possible to collect and would prefer to keep for their own research or display.
It will make for a great provenance story at auction if she gets this back though.
I don´t really understand why NASA are being so up tight about this though,
Because if it was legal for someone to own lunar material with a thimble-full potentially worth a million dollars, a thriving market of counterfeits would spring up overnight which would quickly spiral out of control. It would include fake moon dust, fake rocks, fake experts, fake labs, fake lab results, and real murders.
"Because if it was legal for someone to own lunar material with a thimble-full potentially worth a million dollars, a thriving market of counterfeits would spring up overnight which would quickly spiral out of control. It would include fake moon dust, fake rocks, fake experts, fake labs, fake lab results, and real murders."
And as any fule know, the moon landings were fake too!
On a slightly more serious note, even if Armstrong collected it as a personal memento, could there be freight charges involved? That was an expensive trip where every gramme added to the cost :-)
"could there be freight charges involved?"
Reminds me of the towing invoice for Apollo 13
"Three vertical, one horizontal across the top? Sounds like a wicket to me! Wonder where the bat and ball are?"
Ah, an artifact from the Krikkit wars .
I always knew that Hitchhikers guide the the galaxy was not a novel but a warning sucked in from the future from a wormhole created by to many biros and spare socks
Probably also explains why the rest of the Galaxy wants nothing to do with us. besides being located in the unfashionable western end of said Galaxy. oh yeah we also like to though the term of Belgium 'round a lot too.*
* Not much of a fan when it comes to censorship, but this was a case where the american version got it right.
"* Not much of a fan when it comes to censorship, but this was a case where the american version got it right."
fully agreed! I remember bursting our laughing at that line when I first read the book. I was at an age where an F-bomb would have been inherently funny, but Belgium was so much funnier in context.
So, do mean that if you schedule a game then it rains at game time? That's a great way to ensure an area has sufficient ground water and it then appears that there must be a much greater number of cricket players here in the Province of New Brunswick, Canada than I would have thought.
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COPUOUS - 1962/1967
Space is free for all nations to explore, and sovereign claims cannot be made. Space activities must be for the benefit of all nations and humans.
Most major players have signed this.
The Moon Agreement - 1979 - Article 11
The moon and its natural resources are the common heritage of mankind.
The moon is not subject to national appropriation by any claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means
Neither the surface nor the subsurface of the moon, nor any part thereof or natural resources in place, shall become property of any State, international intergovernmental or non- governmental organization, national organization or non-governmental entity or of any natural person
None of the majpr players have signed up, too busy looking at the profit !
While the ownership of moon rock/dust/dirt brought (returned?) to earth via Apollo probably does rest with NASA, I see no reason to treat anyone else in possession immediately as a criminal, just show them a court order (supreme would be nice) saying it's ours - now hand it over and we'll be on our way.
I doubt any recovered samples would be considered fit for analysis now beyond proving it is actually moon dust.
On a lighter note, how did the astronauts get their trophies past officialdom in the first place?
On a lighter note, how did the astronauts get their trophies past officialdom in the first place?
It was presumably a different place back then, when things were more relaxed, less lawyered-up. I imagine if an astronaut asked if they could keep some physical memento of their ventures it was often simply 'sure, why not'.
Only later did they come to see that The Precious had escaped their clutches and, since then, seem to have ruthlessly attempted to take back everything they can.
"All they have to do is nick, for example, all Van Gogh's works. As superior beings, they will have nailed teleportation (so the initial capture is easy); all the Earth-based compatriate has to do is get to the moon and back. For many oodles of mega $, that should be easy."
Sounds like the plot for a 1980's 8-bit platformer :-)
They almost want to encourage the conspiracy nuts. Yeah, I get it that a market in fake moon or other space stuff would be bad as well (maybe a zillionth as bad as the drug market?), but gee, this is heavy handed. It's not like NASA was losing anything by not having this vial, or was planning on selling it to recoup costs...that, um, we taxpayers paid, not them.
The reason they must have the rocks and dust they claim fame from the Apollo Moon missions is quite simple. They lied to the world and never went to the moon. They were in low earth orbit the entire time. The rocks came from Antarctica. They went there right before Apollo to gather meteorites and took them back to NASA ceramics lab where they pulverized some to dust. That’s why it has earth dust mixed in. Moreover, some of the “moon” rocks they gave to various countries were eventually tested and were nothing more than petrified wood. So, to prevent more embarrassment, they want the fake samples back. Supposedly the moon is rich in rare metals and helium 3. If we could go to the moon, we would be there now.
Think about it. It’s like the wright brothers 1st flight and 60 years later it still hasn’t been repeated.
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