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.

Comments

Good call

[Osgeld]

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

Re:Good call

[MBGMorden]

Why is such a selfless motivation necessary? No, he wasn't "saving it from being lost". He saw something cool and saved it FOR HIS OWN BENEFIT, but the reality is that that motivation is what saved this rock from being lost in the first place. In 200 years it will quite possibly still be known and cataloged - long after he's gone. If the government's response is to sue people for doing such things though, then why bother in the first place?

To put it more bluntly: would you rather it be in a private collection or lost completely? Those are your two options.

Re:Good call

[EdIII]

"Doing the honorable thing" and being a thief are two different things. Furthermore, the Supreme Court IIRC did not care if the trash was out on the street or not. It was in the trash.

Your opinion on what is honorable is different than what is legal.

How do you know where the trash was located? I read the article. Anderson only took it after the garbage men, instructed by the Museum to throw anything not salvageable, picked it up and restored it. It was coated with melted materials.

So in actuality, he did wait until the garbage men made it trash by throwing it away. You are acting upon a belief that he was rummaging through the remains in the middle of the night, when in fact, he was there in plain daylight by virtue of a close relationship with the curator.

If you read further, once he determined what it was, he kept it as a memento of the Museum and back in those days people expected space flights to be a commonplace event in 20 years. He did not think at the time (he was 17) that it was going to be one of a couple hundred Moon rocks in existence.

"Should of" and "legally bound to do so" are two different things. So you can freely express your belief that he should return the rock, but retract your statement of thievery because it is simply untrue. According to facts at hand.

Also, let's remember this. According to the facts... he started the lawsuit after being made aware of the search and intentions to collect all the rocks. So he did come forward after nearly 40 years, in an honorable fashion, to dispute ownership.

He could of have just quietly smiled and spent the twilight years of his life looking it at on the wall of his home and we might not have known the location for another 50-100 years.

Did he do that? No. He came forward and said he claimed it from the trash in full view of the authorities and museum, restored it, and has kept it from further harm for 40 years.

He did not steal it. He did not buy it from the black market. He has not attempted to quietly sell it on the black market for millions either.

So give the man the credit he deserves and stop denigrating him without cause. Let the court decide in this case if he can claim salvage rights, etc.

wow what a shame

[digitalsushi]

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.

This is what should happen...

[jzarling]

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.

CRANKY OLD MAN ASTRONAUT

[Thud457]

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.

Re:Found it in the trash

[SEWilco]

The State of Alaska seems to agree that stuff in the trash is abandoned property (PDF).

Re:He didn't take it out of the trash.

[AK Marc]

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.

Re:People should withhold judgement (yeah, right).

[brokeninside]

The state's side of the story:

Guthienz and Riker weren't the only ones searching for Alaska's moon rocks. Alaska State Museum curator Steve Henrikson had been looking for them on and off since he was hired 21 years ago in Juneau. The story he pieced together didn't match Anderson's.

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.

Shortly after the fire, the museum lost its funding and all the employees were let go, Henrikson said. That left the cleanup and inventory of the artifacts to employees in Juneau. It took them three years to go through everything. They kept expecting to find the moon rock plaque but they never did, Henrikson said.

From Alaska News Daily.