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.

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.

Re:I used to work for this guy

[Peldor]

1. Establish world class museum.
2. ?????
3. Profit!

And so at long last, we know what secret lies behind the mysterious step 2: Secretly sell off all the good stuff!

Shouldn't be hard to get it back

[pr0t0]

I heard that NORAD tracks all kinds of space junk.

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:Conversion?

[TheViffer]

Still $180,000.

An even more pressing question...

[Mancat]

Who the hell would buy this crap? $180,000 for this junk?

Oh, I must have that water valve! Jeeves, fetch me my coat and have the Rolls Royce ready!

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.

Max was anything but a moron.

[wowbagger]

How Max got the job at the Cosmosphere is simple.

He built the place. It started out as a planetarium at a state fair, and Max (and Patty Carey) worked their asses off to make it one of the leading space museums in the world.

He is ANYTHING but a moron. He was one of the cageiest individuals around. He spent years combing junkyards in Florida, Huston, and Huntsville, finding gear that NASA had thown away when the program it was associated with was no longer funded.

He found the best people to restore the artifacts, and built a museum collection that was the envy of other space museums.

Before you spout off on the subject (and moderators, before you moderate this tripe as insightful) you might want to actually do some research on the history of the Cosmosphere.

All of that makes this EVEN WORSE - Max could have just as easily continued to do as he had done, locating artifacts in junkheaps, having Spaceworks (the artifact restoration arm of the Cosmosphere) restore them, and legally sell them. He didn't have to do this!

And if he did indeed misappropriate artifacts (and while it sure looks that way, do remember - he has not yet been convicted in a court of law), then that was not merely a carrer-limiting move, that was a carrer-ending move - no museum will ever touch him again.