Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Moon Rock Winds Up In Court

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the i'll-get-that-pesky-moon-rock-if-its-the-last-thing-I-do dept.

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."

4 of 412 comments (clear)

  1. Value of Moon Rocks by dragons_flight · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

  2. Re:When? by g4dget · · Score: 3, Interesting
    First it was the Oath of Allegiance, now a specimen of moon rock - litigation should NOT always be the first resort.

    • It was the Pledge of Allegiance, not the Oath of Allegiance that was at issue (they are not the same thing).
    • Who says litigation was the "first resort"? Seems like the last resort, after political efforts to convince our sanctimonious and popularity hungry representatives to change laws that blatantly conflict with separation of church and state have failed.
    • The Pledge of Allegiance lawsuit was by a private citizen.

    I'll give you this much, though: I think the government should not spend its money on chasing down Honduran paperweights. They gave it away as a gift--who cares where it ends up?

  3. Re:So... by Gumshoe · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

  4. Re:The problem with the statement that.. by mindstrm · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

    \