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Moon Rock Winds Up In Court
Lothar+0 writes "In United States v. Lucite ball containing lunar material (an actual case, I'm not making this up, folks), the feds are suing to get back a moon rock from an American who brought it back from Honduras. They're alleging that this rock from the Apollo 17 mission is stolen property; ironic considering that NASA took something that wasn't under U.S. jurisdiction."
When will our North American friends realise that their legal system is completely out of control?
First it was the Oath of Allegiance, now a specimen of moon rock - litigation should NOT always be the first resort.
DD
"You can justify anything by putting it in quotes, adding a famous name and making it a sig" - Albert Einstein
This summer I'm working at Lawrence Berkeley Lab, and some of the people near where I work have gotten a few grams of lunar material (Apollo 15, IIRC) from NASA for an experiment aiming to figure out the material's age of formation. Now they only need to look at a particular tiny part of the sample and NASA expects to get the rest back.
Now none of that is unreasonable, but what is unreasonable is the insurance policy they have to take out on the material against theft, accidental lost or destruction. Now insurers naturally want to know the value of what they are insuring. NASA's official and much repeated line is that all lunar material is priceless. This poses a serious problem for insurers, so the next question was what is the cost to replace the sample. No joke, they figured the cost of the policy, and hence the premiums, based on the cost of building a rocket, flying to the moon, collecting a new sample, and bringing it back. Not only that, but two members of the Berkeley physics department are officially down on paper as having volunteered to make the trip should it become neccesary.
I don't know what they are paying exactly, and being in a secured area of a restricted access research lab probably helps keep down the cost, but still it's not cheap holding on to lunar material that NASA expects to get back.
I suppose the true value of anything is exactly the price that someone is willing to pay for it. To me, it's worthless. It's a fricken rock!!! It's a rock in a ball no less. I think a freshly minted penny would be more attactive to me.
But this is a non-story. The US government is simply trying to return property that, so far, appears to have been misappropriated from a foreign government. It's in the US government's best interest to see that it is returned.
Whether or not we actually own the moon is so incredibly irrelevant I can't even believe the notion was brought up. The rock was a gift from our government to theirs. The rock maintains significant value to collectors and so is perceived to hold some value. It is supposed to be in the posession of the Honduran government and is not in their posession at the moment.
What I don't know is whether the Honduran government is actively requesting its return. I haven't read where the rock was actually STOLEN from any part of the Honduran government or any of its dictators. I think it's significant that in the absense of an actual claim that it is illegally out of Honduran territory, the rock should remain with its current owner, Alan Rosen.
I think it's incredibly arrogant for the government to seize property without first hearing a claim that it has been acquired through any illegal means. Okay, so we have an arrogant government... what governmental body ISN'T arrogant?
...which is why you should fight asset forfeiture.
;)
One option is to vote Libertarian in November:
http://www.lp.org/lpnews/0103/forfeiture.html
includes examples, including this one: "a woman accused of shoplifting a $25 sweater had her $18,000 car -- specially equipped for her handicapped daughter -- seized as the 'getaway vehicle.' " [USA Today]
(so maybe it's shameless plugging, but at least it's *informative* shameless plugging.
Has anybody but NASA been to the moon lately?
Actually, yes. The Soviet Union sent many unmanned probes to the moon and retreived moon rocks in the process. This page details the Soviet Luna program.
Notice that the last mission in this series was Luna 24 that returned a "lunar sample" in 1976. Also notice that that last NASA mission to land on the moon (and to bring back samples) was 1972. So the Soviet missions were more recent, although I'm not sure what significance that has.
As much as I agree with you completely... and I most certainly do.. the fact remains.
In many countries, including the USA, if Microsoft has reasonably suspicion that you are in violation... say perhaps because you refused to show them an audit, they will show up with federal marshalls, or some such equivalent authority, and a court order signed by a judge in good standing, and WILL shut you down.
So, as much as you can whine about how they need to prove it first, they will destroy your business beforehand.
Unfortunately, looking at a company, it's not hard to find out if they use MS products, and it's not hard for MS to find out if they aren't on file.
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