Posted on 05/23/2017 7:11:56 AM PDT by simpson96
Shortly after Neil Armstrong took "one giant leap for mankind" by stepping on the surface of the moon, he did what any tourist does: He collected a souvenir.
Armstrong, the first person to set foot on the lunar surface, scooped some lunar rocks into a bag, then placed it into another bag, and put it in the pocket of his space suit.
From there, the outer sample bag, containing traces of moon dust, took a long and torturous path before it was mistakenly put out to public auction and scooped up by a suburban Chicago lawyer for $995. Now, the incredibly rare artifact will go on auction, and auctioneers expect it to fetch $2 million to $4 million.
Because NASA's lunar objects generally are prohibited from being privately owned, curators at Sotheby's auction house believe the moon dust bag to be the only privately held object of its kind in the world.(snip)
Like many baby boomers who watched the lunar landings as kids, the bag's owner, Nancy Lee Carlson, an attorney from Inverness, was fascinated by the Apollo missions.
She came across the bag, labeled "lunar sample return," on an online federal auction site,where it ended up after a bureaucratic misunderstanding. After no one bid on it in three initial auctions, she bought it in February 2015.
She initially kept the object in her bedroom closet, then sent it to NASA to verify its authenticity. NASA officials verified that the bag indeed contained moon dust, a dark-gray fine powder, like graphite, that one astronaut described as smelling like gunpowder.
But once officials knew the bag came from the moon, they confiscated it as government property. Carlson filed a federal lawsuit, and in February, a judge concluded that she had legally acquired the moon bag and was entitled to keep it.
(Excerpt) Read more at chicagotribune.com ...
I have some dust bunnies under the couch if anyone is interested.
Just like the IRS...................Is there really any difference between bureaucracies?..........
....hmmmmm, I’m thinking I could moon some dust
Snort that stuff, man -- the high is out of this world!
Were any of those official NASA kakistocrats prosecuted for their actions? Or serve jail time?
Nope. They all think it is THEIRS.
I have a lump of coal from the Titanic wreck.
Its like Christopher Columbus selling “new world dirt.”
I have a feeling mankind will be getting back there in the not so distant future.
Once again, the passive voice is used to hide or minimize government screwups.
I'll just keep whistling.
A giant bag of rice could have completely changed the outcome of the story.
....Local woman’s bag of moon dust to be sold at auction, possibly for millions...
Unless the Feds decide to seize it again.
If the federal government wants it back, it can bid on it.
Moon Dust. It sounds like a Dirty Martini using Grey Goose vodka with a ‘liberal’ splash of vermouth.
Apparently a federal judge doesn’t agree with your statist position.
“A Fall of Moondust”
Moon dust. Bit coins. Unicorns. Groovy, man.
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