Museum Director Indicted for Stealing NASA Artifacts

NBrooke271 writes "Max Ary, former Director of the Kansas Cosmosphere, has been hit with an eleven-count federal indictment, charging that he sold NASA space artifacts on loan to the museum, including an astronaut's in-flight T-shirt, a control panel from Air Force One and an Apollo 12 water valve for a personal profit of around $180,000. 'Mr. Ary, on behalf of the Cosmosphere, continued to sign documents reporting and verifying to NASA that the watch was still in its possession and collection,' said U.S. Attorney Eric Melgren. Ary currently serves as the Executive Director of Omniplex Science Museum in Oklahoma City, where he has taken a leave of absence. Read official statements from the Cosmosphere, the Omniplex, and Ary's attorney regarding the indictment."

Comments

Watch?

[ackthpt]

'Mr. Ary, on behalf of the Cosmosphere, continued to sign documents reporting and verifying to NASA that the watch was still in its possession and collection,' said U.S. Attorney Eric Melgren.

What 'watch'?

The NASA Omega Mock-up Watch 38. Sometime prior to January of 2000, the exact date being unknown to the Grand Jury, the Cosmosphere loaned several artifacts to a space exhibit in the Philippines. The Cosmosphere became aware that some of these items were lost or damaged when some of the items were returned on or about April 1998. The items loaned to the Philippine exhibit included: a Shuttle In-flight garment, a Russian Soyuz Space Suit, American Space Food (five packages), an Apollo Liquid Cooling garment, a Beta cloth stowage bag, an Omega 17
mock-up watch, an astronaut ink pen, a Gemini spacesuit, an Apollo In-flight garment. 39. The Omega astronaut watch was a mock-up watch that the Cosmosphere had received pursuant to an exhibit loan agreement from NASA.

Sounds more like mismanagement, if it was still reported as present, yet missing or damaged.

Though a href="http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/ks/press/apr2005/a pril7a.html">this looks pretty damning and has more of the detail.

A properly embedded link.. sigh.

[ackthpt]

Link to DoJ charges

I'd personally like to thank the people who made sure the keyboard loses USB focus (or whatever it is) every few seconds and drops keystrokes.

I used to work for this guy

[NBrooke271]

Submitter here. Incidentally, I used to work at the Omniplex when Mr. Ary was in charge. We were very excited when he came to the museum; we had heard that he practically built the Cosmosphere with his bare hands. He pioneered the Smithsonian Affiliate program, one of the best ways for museums to get their hands on great government collections. This indictment has come as a shock to everyone.

More information

[TripMaster Monkey]

In the interest of promoting more enlightened discussion, the news release from the DOJ regarding this case can be found here.

Re:More information

[DikSeaCup]

"enlightened discussion"

You must be new here.

Considering the number of folks that don't even bother to click on the hyperlinks provided by the Slashdot listing itself (IOW RTFA), the number of folks that will follow yours will be considerably diminished.

Honestly, thanks though - I followed a link to the DOJ site but it went to a front page, and not the specific article of interest.

Love the Cosmosphere

[MrNiceguy_KS]

If you've never been there, the Kansas Cosmosphere is an answer to anyone asking "Why the hell would I want to go to Kansas?" While it's not as big as the Air and Space Museum in DC, it has the largest collection of space artifacts in existance. You want to see Oddessey, the Apollo 13 command module? The gloves Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin wore on the moon? I was just there (again) this weekend and, had I not had my wife and daughter along, would have easily spent another 2 hours just walking through the museum. (by the way, the artifacts I mentioned are still there)

They also have a planetarium and IMAX theater, but the museum is the real draw for me. It's a walkthrough the history of space exploration, from the early experiments of Goddard and Von Braun, to the German WW2 missle programs, the cold-war era space race, up through the Shuttle, ISS, and Space Ship One.

The on-site restoration and replication studio does amazing work. They produced most of the props for the Apollo 13 movie. They later restored the Apollo 13 command module and the "Liberty Bell" Mercury module (which had sat on the ocean floor for decades) They received a retired SR-71 plane, and added on to the building to display it in the lobby.

If you're anywhere near Hutchinson, Kansas, it's well worth driving out of your way to see.

This guy is a jerk anyway

[redshield3]

I worked at the Omniplex (the latest place this man was the director) over the summer, and had previously volunteered there for over four years.

When he arrived at the museum he made a lot of sweeping changes without really consulting anyone. He fired most of the upper level people and replaced them with people he worked with in Kansas and I believe in Houston as well.

His changes affected the character of the Omniplex in a detrimental way. The focus seemed to shift from educating people to making money. His management & leadership were piss-poor and had a negative effect on morale that trickled down to us lowly types who actually had to interact with visitors. Turnover was high all throughout the employee structure, and in the summer I worked there no less than 8 people were fired (the total staff is under 100).

I hope that he is forced to leave and that his groupies he brought in leave too. Good riddance.

Re:This guy is a jerk anyway

[redshield3]

It's not that a 'little temp worker' got caught up in the politics of the place. I care a lot about the Omniplex and I want to see it do well. My relationship with the museum and it's staff extends back about 15 years. I've watched the place take a pronounced nosedive since he took his position.

These firings (from May to August of 2004) weren't related to any new management structure; these summer firings were people that actually do a lot of the work around the museum. Some of them had been there for over twenty years. They had spoken the truth about the negative effects some of the changes that were made in order to affect a change for the better; instead, they got the boot.

When staff member after staff member gets fired for telling the upper managment that things they were trying to do just wouldn't work, and then lo and behold, they don't work, and things continue to get worse, it's hard to not notice.

Not to mention the detrimental effect on personell morale - people were scared to tell the truth for fear they would lose their jobs.

Re:Max was anything but a moron.

[Buran]

The space.com version of this story (where I originally heard about this) goes on to say:

Disclosure: collectSPACE Editor Robert Pearlman is among the collectors who unknowingly purchased items stolen from the Cosmosphere. In response to a request by NASA, he has surrendered the artifact - an Apollo spacesuit strap-on pocket - to NASA's Inspector General.

If the items are showing up in the hands of other people, who know where they got them from (if you're a serious collector, you keep records) then there's definitely something fishy there.

Source: Former Museum Director Indicted in Theft of Space Artifacts