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Court to Decide If Man Can Keep His Moon Rock
Joe Gutheinz, a former senior investigator for NASA's Office of Inspector General, has made it his goal to collect all 230 moon rocks presented by the US to governments around the world, and put them in a museum. Deadliest Catch Captain Coleman Anderson wants to keep his little piece of the moon. Anderson says he found the rock in the trash mixed with debris following a fire at an Anchorage museum in 1973. He's kept it as a good luck charm ever since. "Our astronauts and their descendants are not permitted to have an Apollo 11-era moon rock to sell for their own enrichment and neither should a private citizen who acquired one in a less-noble manner," Gutheinz said. An Alaskan judge will now decide who legally owns the rock.
Maybe he should have let the thing go on in the trash, then where would your precious little moon rock be? But that's what you get for trying, sued
The museum wasn't the property owner, but merely a custodian of an item which is owned by NASA and was on loan to them. That they improperly disposed of it, does not terminate NASA's ownership.
William
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.
I would like to cite the case of 'Finders vs Keepers'
"Our astronauts and their descendants are not permitted to have an Apollo 11-era moon rock to sell for their own enrichment and neither should a private citizen who acquired one in a less-noble manner,"
The way I see it, the guy saved it from being buried in some landfill somewhere. I'm sure none of that matters to the courts, but I can't see trying to slander the guy for wanting to keep what he found. Also, it doesn't sound like he's trying to cash in on it (at least not yet), but is rather fond of his "good luck charm".
we should just go get a bunch more rocks so that they are not valuable. it's a damned rock. but since we're apparently stuck on this one forever, they are worth more than gold.
did you people know the top of the washington monument is made of aluminium? cause that used to be precious too.
let the dude keep his pebble. lets be noble and go back to the moon. we used to be good at it.
slashdot: where everyone yells sarcastic metaphors to themselves to understand the issue
That's not how I read it. Per the article, "After the museum fire and cleanup, garbage trucks were sent in to haul off the remaining debris, and Anderson claims he was combing through it when he discovered the plaque, which was coated with a thick layer of melted materials."
It's not looting to go through trash.
Coleman -
Give it back - sure you saved it and restored the plaque, but its a moon rock it belongs to the public.
State of Alaska -
Thank him for safe keeping a state treasure,
Display the Rock in a museum, and include the message of thanks to Coleman for keeping what you thought was junk, but was also historically valuable.
make sure you never loose this thing again.
All sides drop all lawsuits.
Everyone move on.
It is better to be the hammer than the anvil.
The best compromise is when both parties are not happy with the result.
It also depends on where the garbage was when it was rummaged through. And what sort of container it was in, since dumpsters are generally property of the hauling company, and putting something into one may be considered transferring ownership to them.
This case is all about ownership of trash, and not at all about what the item is. Since there's no law saying a private citizen can't own a moon rock, that makes it a moot rock.
Buzz Aldrin should fly to Alaska, punch this guy in the nose, and recover the moon rock for the benefit of Mankind. And let a camera crew from the History channel tag along for the lulz.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
he found it in the trash. He didn't steal it. It was being thrown out and would have been put in a landfill. The museum was negligent; he didn't steal it.
blah blah blah
It's a chain-of-ownership issue here. If NASA loaned the rock to the museum for display, and they accidentally tossed it out, NASA still owns it, all the way to the dump and beyond. Just because you lose track of something doesn't mean you don't own it anymore. You have to give it away, sell it, transfer it, abandon it, or have it confiscated, to lose ownership over it. Valuable things are rarely donated to museums, they are more often put on exhibit on a temporary or permanent basis.
Right now that's looking like the case. But further details could emerge. Maybe NASA gave them 11 rocks along with other stuff, and asked for "all 10 rocks back and you can dispose of the rest of the exhibit", which would transfer ownership of rock #11 to the museum, which threw it out (abandoned it) and then in the trash pile it does become finders-keepers.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
If you've ever watch the crab captains on Deadliest Catch, you would know that there never existed in the universe a more greedy, money-obsessed group of cold sonofabitches than those guys. They LOVE money. They don't hesitate to risk the lives of their own families for money. They think about money from the second they get up to the moment they go to bed.
If this guy was a crab captain, you can bet that he's holding out for more money. All that sentimental value crap is just his way of bargaining. I guarantee you that the only thing that has stopped him from selling it before was his questionable title to it. If he wins this case, he'll be auctioning it off the next day.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
According to the TFA, the item was "presented to the state of Alaska in 1969 by President Nixon".
If the museum was run by the state, then they tossed it, and he owns it...
I do not believe any party to the suit is willing to admit that the moonrock was intentionally placed in a trash receptacle outside the building and curtilage of the museum and, thereby, abandoned.
And, even if that were the case, that does not mean that a finder has right to title if the object is found. If, as I believe the feds are claiming, the rocks don't actually belong to the museum but to the US government, then it doesn't matter if the museum did abandon the rocks.
That said, it's apparent that the government is being an asshat about the situation. What they should have done is graciously thanked Anderson for saving the rocks, offered to generously reimburse him for his time as steward of the rocks, and offered to put a commemorative plaque with his name on the new display. As it is, they're being petty bullies.
On the matter of legality, the claim is that the museum staff "meticulously" searched through the debris, salvaging what they deemed valuable, before calling the trash removal company to haul the rest away. Anderson did not dumpster dive to get this, but he did pick it from among the remaining debris.
As far as the rock being a "loaner," I respectfully disagree... it was presented to the museum by President Nixon; many museums display loaned items, either from private collections or as part of an arrangement with other museums, but that doesn't mean they don't "own" any of the items on display, if something is "presented" to them, then one would think they own it. After the fire, they chose not to salvage it.
Let's let the courts decide the legality... it seems like there's a lot of gray area we may not be privy to right now.
On the matter of ethics, or should he return it, I say... no. Why should he? There's over 200 of them, many of them "recovered." So what are they going to do with them? Lock them away? Put them in more museums? They got 70 of them back... isn't that enough for whatever they want to do? It seems like sour grapes to say "well, X can't have one, so why should Y," when it makes little difference in the end to X or anyone else that Y has one.
It would be cool if Anderson would "lend" it to a museum, so other people can see it, too, but I don't see why legal or "moral" ownership requires a prerequisite that others should be able to own the same thing.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
As of the present, the only government involved is the state of Alaska which filed a counter-suit to Anderson's pre-emptive lawsuit.
The timeline is basically:
1. Former investigator teaches college course encouraging students to track what happened to various moon rocks.
2. Student finds where the trail ends (at the museum fire) and encourages the state of Alaska to get involved in finding what happened.
3. Anderson sues for the right to keep the rock or have the state recompense him for keeping the rock safe.
4. The state of Alaska counter-sues.
At which of those four steps did the Obama administration, the present administrator of NASA, or anyone else in present federal government become involved?
The last people to see the plaque, Henrikson said, were two museum employees who walked through the building after the fire. According to them, the moon rocks were intact, in a glass case. After that, museum staff discussed taking the plaque out of the burned-out area and putting it in a more secure part of the museum. A few days later, a museum employee noticed it wasn't in the case. Instead there was just a clean square in the ash and dust where it had been sitting. She assumed Phil Redden, a museum curator, took it home for safe-keeping. But later, when he was asked, Redden denied it.
a man named Coleman Anderson is listed in the obituary for the transportation museum's last curator, Phil Redden.
Coleman Anderson has the rock. http://community.adn.com/adn/node/157506
NASA gave away the rocks. Then complains when they end up in the hands of people they don't want to have them. They should have done what museums do and put things on permanent loan so that they would retain ownership but let others have use of them. But no, they give them away then demand them back on whims. Like you say, when a EULA does that, people here generally go nuts, but when it's done with a rock (something likely even less appropriate for such treatment) people support a completely unwritten EULA. I can't understand it.
Learn to love Alaska
NASA (or Nixon or whoever) gave away the rocks. They didn't loan them out. Only now are people asserting that there was some unwritten EULA attached to the rocks that require that they be returned to NASA whenever NASA asks. Because such an agreement didn't exist when they were freely given away.
Learn to love Alaska
To put it more bluntly: would you rather it be in a private collection or lost completely? Those are your two options.
Well there is a third option: rescued from museum mishandling, returned to NASA, and put on public display.
I don't think this guy did anything wrong, rather he deserves to be thanked. However the museum probably did not have ownership nor did they have the right to throw it out. If you loan something to a museum and they mishandle it don't you still own it?