Posted on 06/30/2011 2:41:09 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The U.S. government has sued a former NASA astronaut to recover a camera used to explore the moon's surface during the 1971 Apollo 14 mission after seeing it slated for sale in a New York auction.
The lawsuit, filed in Miami federal court on Wednesday, accuses Edgar Mitchell of illegally possessing the camera and attempting to sell it for profit.
In March, NASA learned that the British auction house Bonhams was planning to sell the camera at an upcoming Space History Sale, according to the suit.
The item was labeled "Movie Camera from the Lunar Surface" and billed as one of two cameras from the Apollo 14's lunar module Antares. The lot description said the item came "directly from the collection" of pilot Edgar Mitchell and had a pre-sale estimate of $60,000 to $80,000, the suit said.
Mitchell was a lunar module pilot on Apollo 14, which launched its nine-day mission in 1971 under the command of Alan Shepard. The sixth person to walk on the moon, Mitchell is now retired and runs a website selling his autographed picture.
He has made headlines in the past for his stated belief in the existence of extraterrestrial life.
"All equipment and property used during NASA operations remains the property of NASA unless explicitly released or transferred to another party," the government suit said, adding NASA had no record of the camera being given to Mitchell.
The suit said the government had made repeated requests to Mitchell and his lawyer to return the camera but received no response.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
You are either honest are you are not, I just do not think the man wants it in the history book, he has a good retirement income.
I’m sure there ,and still are, very special work contracts for those astronauts who go into space.
There are thousands of such cameras in Hollywood where the moon landing was filmed!
He can keep the camera; but give NASA the memory stick.
That’s fair
Yes. But see post #31 for more info.
I hate to take O'Dumbo's side on this one, but I have no choice.
That camera is government property, and part of the national Legacy. It belongs in the Smithsonian.
But that reminds me. Did we ever get back the china, silver and furniture that the Trailer Park Clintoons attempted to abscond with from the White House? Oh yes, also the missing computer keyboard keys that they vandalized?
They lost a camera too? I thought losing the original moon landing tape from the Australia communications station was incompetent enough...
Went into an autograph store at Downtown Disney in Orlando. Noticed a collection of autographs from the movie Apollo 13 was priced 5 times more than the autographs of the actual astronauts which were side by side ....
If he was keeping it, this wouldn’t be an issue. He’s trying to sell it, and NASA’s pulling rank.
Which I have no problem with. It wasn’t his rocket that got him up there.
Gus Grissom took a bunch of Mercury dimes with him when he went on his solo flight. When he splashed down and almost drowned, the capsule sunk to the bottom of the ocean. When they raised it a couple of years ago, I think they found the dimes still inside. Apparently Grissom HAD intended to sell them. I can’t blame him too much. Astronauts were paid at the same salary they received as their Air Force rank. Probably not too much in the early 60’s.
There are some of those, for sure, but I think most folks like that are merely desperate to stay connected with a past America they see crumbling around them on a daily basis.
An ex-girlfriend of mine had somehow been friends with one of the astronauts who walked on the moon. She stayed at his place in Texas for a while, and while there the maid had accidently broken a bag in a closet that contained some moon dust... and she thought it was dirt and promptly vacuumed it up and disposed of it.
The astronaut was not pleased... not in the least bit.
I know Ed Mitchell and consider him to be a friend. If he wants to sell the camera, let him sell it especially if it was given to him by NASA.
Is he the astronaut who paints pictures mixing moon dust with the paint oils? He apparently obtained the dust from his moon suit.
It wasn't the NASA people sitting on their rears that were risking their lives either. Also, it wasn't NASA's rocket, it was the American people that paid for it. As one of those people, I say let him do with it as he wishes.
That would be Alan Bean. Don’t know about the moon dust in the paint, but he is definitely a painter of great talent.
Alan Bean was Lunar Module Pilot on Apollo 12, and the 4th man to walk on the moon after Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Pete Conrad. Conrad and Bean were the ones who landed 600 feet from the Surveyor spacecraft and returned with pieces of it.
I’m not 100% sure how well the moon landings would have gone without the guys in Houston, but since it’s before my time, I guess I’ll just have to assume that Armstrong, Aldrin, Mitchell and the others could have just bootstrapped themselves to the moon without NASA’s equipment, infrastructure, and expertise.
Learn something new every day!
Me, for one.
It's NOT his to keep, or even worse to sell.
I paid for it.
You paid for it.
Would you begrudge a shuttle pilot from keeping a shuttle and selling it?
We should hold these guys in honor, until they betray it, which he has.
All of which was paid for by the people. These brave men risked their lives to give all of us valuable information. I don't remember giving NASA the right to sue them for anything. If we did, then I've learned something new and disturbing.
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