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NASA Sues Apollo Astronaut To Return Moon Camera
Hugh Pickens writes "The US government has brought a lawsuit against astronaut Edgar Mitchell, the sixth man on the moon, after discovering that Mitchell had approached a NY auction house trying to sell a 16-millimeter data acquisition camera that was supposed to have been left in the lunar module. Mitchell argues that too many years have gone by for the government to pursue the camera as stolen and besides, it was given to the now 80-year-old moonwalker as a gift in line with NASA's then-policies governing spent equipment. However, the government contends it has no record of the camera being given to Mitchell who elected to remove it from the lunar module before parting ways with the spacecraft and returning to Earth, and the judge has ruled that the government is not bound by the statute of limitations denying Mitchell's motion to dismiss the lawsuit. The Apollo 14 astronauts were not the only crewmates to salvage parts of their lunar module as mementos: Astronauts aboard Apollo 12 and Apollo 15 ripped off parts of their moonwalking suits' life support backpacks before they were discarded onto the lunar surface. But what makes Mitchell's case different is that other astronauts asked their bosses before each mission for permission and provided a list of items they planned to keep while apparently Mitchell didn't. 'They give me a list of things they're going to bring back,' said Deke Slayton, head of NASA's astronaut corps, who died in 1993. 'I give it to the program office and they bring 'em back.' For his part, Mitchell does not seem ready to give up the camera as the case prepares to go to trial next year."
The conspiracy theorists are going to have a field day with this one...
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Did I just read that the government is not bound by the statute of limitations?
..and here I thought the statute of limitations was specifically there to bind the government.
"His name was James Damore."
'They give me a list of things they're going to bring back,' said Deke Slayton, head of NASA's astronaut corps, who died in 1993.
A guy who died 18 years ago is the head of NASA's astronaut corps? That explains a lot.
Should we refer to it as the astronaut "corpse" then?
#DeleteChrome
"...government is not bound by..."
This pretty much explains how we got to where we are today.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Damn, I should have become a lawyer in stead of a scientist!
Where we shit on our heros at a moments notice over really dumb things.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
government wants the camera back because it has undeniable proof that the landings were a hoax. or maybe footage of our dealings with secret aliens to acquire microchip technology....
It's a legal issue having nothing to do with technology, why is it cluttering up these august pages?
You could argue that the money NASA is blowing on lawyers to chase after one of the heroes of the Apollo program for selling a camera which was going to be thrown away anyway could be better spent developing new technology.
Just suggestin'.
Next there will be a story of someone who is selling the barn where the Wright brothers built the first place.
Mesmerizing stuff.
the government is not bound by the statute of limitations
Funny, IANAL but isn't that exactly what a statute of limitations DOES? Puts time limits on the government being able to go after you for anything from petty theft to capital murder.
Also it kinda reminds me of this case, where a judge ruled that the government is "immune to lawsuits when property is in custody of law enforcement.".
So it looks like the odds are pretty stacked in favor of the government. Tell yourself exactly how "free" you are, nowadays.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Seems like a silly choice if you ask me. Especially when the guy is 80-years-old and a national hero. Moon rocks, I understand - they're in limited supply and of real research value. A camera? C'mon.
As a sidenote, Space is about the only topic outside of friends and family that can still bring a tear to this grown man's eye. For me, it's the last romantic pursuit of mankind, and one which I treat with the utmost reverence. It's a shame that it's so wrapped up in politics.
It sounds like internal NASA politics bullshit. I bet the person at NASA leading the charge to get the camera back would piss themselves at the mere thought of going through the level risk those guys embraced. They would rather have left it on the moon than let an astronaut keep it? IMO that's a tragedy.
How retarded they are mad at him for not leaving it on the moon. So instead of it sitting on the moon collecting space dust it's on earth and he wants to sell it, big deal? At some point it has to simply not be worth your time to bother with. It's not like there is some sort of statement you're trying to make because we aren't ever sending anyone back to the moon again. So no one will ever be able to repeat his 'crime' of bringing back moon garbage. I swear bureaucratic astound me at how they love to enforce trivial things.
...it's stories like these that make people look at you and say "Boy, I sure am glad the government cut their funding!"
What do I know, I'm just an idiot, right?
What good is the statute of limitations if the courts are going to arbitrarily ignore it? By what logic is the judge ignoring the law?
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
This astronaut risks his life to go to the moon, and now the government isn't even letting him keep a little piece of garbage (essentially, that is what it is) that he brought back as a memento. How incredibly lame.
Since the camera was meant to be left there, this alleged crime would have occurred on the moon. Does this mean that the US federal government has jurisdiction on the moon?
He's not trying to keep it, he's trying to sell it.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
Yeah if I was said astronaut I would take a little boat trip, drop the camera overboard and say "what camera?"
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
You'd think anything purposely designated to be left on the Moon is about as abandoned as property can get.
Edgar Mitchell is officially known as the first pickpocket on the moon!
Achille Talon
Hop!
It is probably not as stupid as that test pilot with a broken foot hiding the fact from the Air Force in a glory seeking attempt to be the first to break the sound barrier. That is the best one can say about the incident.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Wait until they get to the Zapruder film from the moon.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Honestly, I'm not that surprised that of all the astronauts who walked on the moon that this would be an issue with Edgar Mitchell. He's always been a bit of an odd ball/loose cannon. He's a strong believer in psychics and thinks that UFOs are actually visiting aliens. He also claims to have been involved in remote healing and ESP. He founded the very New Agey Institute for Noetic Sciences http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institute_of_Noetic_Sciences (some may remember them for getting some degree of reference in Dan Brown's last book.) A lot of NASA has had very little patience with him. It isn't surprising that he'd both have neglected to do something like tell the rest of NASA what he was taking back and that he would have annoyed them enough that they would not end up finding an amicable resolution of the issue.
Moon thievery? Come on man. Save the grunting for the next bitcoin post.
0 = 1 + e^(Alt something)
A guy who died 18 years ago is the head of NASA's astronaut corps? That explains a lot.
Should we refer to it as the astronaut "corpse" then?
What does NASA need a living head of its astronaut corps for? It's not like it has any spacecraft to send them up in.
He's not trying to keep it, he's trying to sell it.
And unless that ancient piece of hardware is going to command a new multi-billion dollar budget for NASA at auction, NASA should give a shit about this why?
At auction, this thing probably won't even fetch enough to pay for a NASA toilet seat, but could bring significant benefit to the seller(and buyer for that matter), not to mention perhaps getting some good press out of it. Instead, NASA decided to take a shit on it and call out a national hero. Nice, real nice.
NASA, you embarrassed a Nation today. Learn to leave well enough alone.
I've heard of the Wright Brothers and the things they were first to do. But really? I'm pretty sure they didn't build the first place. Depending on your religious or evolution beliefs, I'm sure some prior art can refute this claim.
The big question is: How did he get it through quarantine on his return 40 years ago? Like nobody noticed that he had this movie camera in his pocket at the time and said, "Hey Edgar, is that a camera in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?"
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Since the camera was abandoned on the moon, it should have been fair game.
If someone is passing you on the right, you are an asshole for driving in the wrong lane.
I am just guessing but I expect its not about possessing the "discarded" gear, rather its about trying to profit from it. If it had been passed on to his kids/grandkids or put in a museum for display I doubt the government would have cared.
I have a big problem with astronauts monetizing that memorabilia.
Analogy: Chef eats free lunch at restaurant; Chef sells his free lunch to third party.
Husband fucks whife; Husband sells videos of the fucking on the internet (does not share income)
One other ex-astronaut recently complained that NASA pulled his visitors badge for NASA Houston. There used to be a policy that astronauts could visit the old place, but no longer. NASA still has about 60 active astronauts on the payroll, which is about 40 more than they need. They haven't officially announced layoffs, but there is pressure to quit or retire.
nah I wouldn't call him a hero. A thief yes, but not a hero. We paid for this and went about getting it absolutely the wrong way. I would be happy if he returned it, paid NASA any cost incurred to them from this as a result of lawyer fees and anything else related and that's that. If he turns around and starts to be a dick about it then fine him and look at throwing some jail time in there as well for him. Just my thoughts.
If they let this guy keep the camera then they're setting a bad precedent. It would mean that all future astronauts on US manned lunar missions would... oh wait... never mind. Precedent averted due to lack of manned lunar missions.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
why is it cluttering up these august pages?
Because it's OCTOBER, you loserboy nerd.
Geeks are so full of shit that "beating the crap out of them" takes a whole new meaning.
These guys risk their lives to go into space and do what is asked of them. Now they are sued for keeping a memento that was going to be discarded anyway? He should sue NASA as he just found out how dangerous it really was and they risked his life. Good grief.
Either it goes back to it's rightful resting place, or the guy who brought it back gets to keep it. Choose.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
IANAL but my understanding is that vessels at sea are under the legal jurisdiction of the country whose flag they fly. Warships even remain the territory of their country after being sunk. I'd expect spacecraft would operate under similar rules, especially government owned spacecraft.
It should be treated as marine salvage. I'm no expert at marine salvage law, so I don't know what that entails, but the fact that it took place on the moon should make no difference.
We paid for this and went about getting it absolutely the wrong way.
The Apollo astronauts left a lot of poop bags on the moon too, which NASA paid for; both the bags and the poop inside them. If he'd brought back a bag full of space-poop and was selling it, would you be making the same argument?
Ultimately it's a camera which was to be abandoned on the moon, which would have essentially no value if it hadn't been to the moon because very soon you won't even be able to buy 16mm film anymore. If the government gets it back they're just going to stick it in a box and it will never be seen again.
What's the point? NASA looks bad and gains nothing unless it then turns around and sells the camera itself.
I'm sure they'll come to a fair and reasonable agreement that all charges will be dropped if he simply puts the camera back where he found it.
When someone says, "Any fool can see
This may be the best username/post combo in Slashdot history.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Judge: You can have the camera back, on one condition - you have to put it back in the lunar module where it rightfully belongs.
40 year old camera? Wasting tax payers money to go after it. This just leads me to believe that there is something there they do not wish people to find out about or see.
It may not be abandoned in a legal sense. For example it is my understanding that a naval vessel remains property of the navy until stricken from the navy's registry. Also it may not be abandoned in the scientific sense either. A future mission may visit the site to study the effect of long term exposure on various materials. IIRC things like this have already been done, Apollo 12 landed near a robotic Surveyor probe and recovered some parts for such a purpose. The lander may be expended not abandoned?
You do understand how lame the 'poop bag' argument sounds right? Im not going to respond to that part. First off this is a matter of doing the right thing. Most likely if he would have asked they would not have a problem with him taking it, provided that the weight of bringing the camera back on board didn't harm things as well. Remember back then they accounted for weight on everything. The main thing I am getting at is just ask first, don't just think you are entitle to grab stuff that belongs to someone else and assume ownership of it.
Let us presume this little spat is taken as precident, and the government wins. Camera ends up in some vault at the smithsonian. Whatever.
Let's assume spacex is a successful commerical enterprise and commercially funded moonshots start happening. By then the lunar modules and associated trappings will be 70 years old. However, the moon lacks atmosphere, and other than UV induced breakdown in plastics, most of the moon era "space trash" is still up there and in theoretically repairable\repurposable condition.
Should a commerically funded startup lunar colony appropriate a multimillion dollar lunar rover, fit it with brand new RTGs, and commission it for use in the construction of said lunar colony, (or even just fit it with modern electronics and set it loose as an autonomous rover for private research) does this mean that spacex (or whatever private firm has made use of such space trash to cut costs) would be criminally liable for a grand theft indictment?
Well NASA, maybe if you hadn't wasted so much of the tax payers money with lavish parties, you wouldn't feel the need to have a little old camera back.
It's a legal issue having nothing to do with technology, why is it cluttering up these august pages?
Dude, it's, like, October already
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
For Fuc*s sake, the man walked on the moon for you. If he wants to sell it then buy it off him NASA.
As stated in the article, astronauts had to receive explicit permission for what they were bringing back. That permission is apparently documented for all the other moonwalkers, who pulled-off pieces of their discarded suits as mementos, and also for small boxes of crap they were authorized to bring along (such as pennants and patches). Why should the rules that applied to all the others not apply to him, simply because he decided not to obey them?
I'm also curious to know if such a request would've been honored. How many moonwalkers were permitted to keep more than just pieces of their suits, were others allowed to scavenge instrumentation or maybe the lunar rover's gearshift knob? Or were they pretty much limited to salvaging tiny mementos from their own personal equipment?
Frankly, if he smuggled the camera back without permission, it's not his and he needs to give it back and ask for forgiveness. It was unprofessional and unethical and unfair to the others who risked their lives and didn't come back with extra souvenirs they could try to sell tens of thousands of dollars because they played by the rules.
How much are the people whose salaries our tax dollars pay costing us to spend their resource going after this guy for a 40-yr old camera? This is important enough that it has gotten to the top of someone's list of things to do? And we have to pay for it?
Exactly who does this help and how?
Knowledge is like ignorance.. too much can be just as bad as not enough.
This worthless government bureaucracy needs to go away. Now.
The guy is 80 years old. It probably doesn't have some secret film of aliens in it (anymore;). Just let the guy f***ing keep it. If he wants to sell it, let him. I mean this guy went to the moon, I would hope they get at least one souvenir, if not a few.
Unless, of course, he was presented the camera by NASA as a gift as he says he was.
At which point any assertion that he's a thief or acting in bad faith becomes factually inaccurate and anybody saying it is talking about things they know nothing about.
Now, do I have anything to suggest that he was or wasn't given this camera ... nope. Other than NASA having no record of it, do they have anything to back up their claims either? Nope.
So, maybe before you start saying he's a thief (which makes you guilty of libel if untrue), you should wait until someone provides some actual evidence of this. At this point, it's purely "he said/they said".
If he was given this by someone at NASA, then maybe NASA is acting like dicks and behaving unreasonably because someone didn't fill out some government form correctly.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
If you read the article, the module was dropped to the moon to be destroyed on impact. In any sane world, such action relinquishes any claim.
Title to abandoned property (property that has been left by the owner with no intention to retrieve it) becomes that of the first person to claim it. The camera was abandoned on the moon, the astronaut was the first to claim it, it belongs to him. Simples.
Well lets see - he is on a space flight back from moon, and he wants to carry something back (without letting ground control know about it - unlike the other astronauts).
Now if others started copying his behaviour (he is gonna make a lot of money on the camera since it was on the moon), missions could be compromised due to unexpected stuff( this time a camera, next time some other instrument) in the spacecraft.
NASA has to retrieve the camera because it may contain proof that Stanley Kubrick faked the moon landings!
Theft is knowingly appropriating somebody else's property for your own use. However, abandoned property is not owned by anybody, and therefore cannot be stolen.
The moon, by international treaty, is not owned by anybody, especially the United States. The camera was a part of the lunar module, which was intended (and did, though minus the camera), to be abandonded on the lunar surface (after falling down and being turned into a pile of twisted metal).
IINAL
Not sure this is most up-to-date, but see http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL31253.pdf which seems to indicate a 5 year limitation for "theft".
"Ordinarily, the statute of limitations begins to run as soon as the crime has been completed." This appears to apply to alleged theft.
"The federal courts have long held that a statute of limitations may be enlarged retroactively as long as the previously applicable period of limitation has not expired." But this was not done in this case, so far as I have heard.
So I don't know what the judge is referring to in saying there is no applicable federal statute of limitations.
But someone in NASA should have looked at this proposed lawsuit and told the lawyer who wanted to bring charges that he's an ass to involve NASA's reputation in something so relatively trivial. If their goal is to get back at Mitchell for flouting their 'authoritae', they could have simply issued a press release stating that either the camera is not authentic, or Mitchell must have stolen it, as it was supposed to have been left on the LEM and they have no record of giving him permission to take it.
You could argue that the money NASA is blowing on lawyers to chase after one of the heroes of the Apollo program for selling a camera which was going to be thrown away anyway could be better spent developing new technology.
As those of us in government well know, "that's another department's budget." It's extremely foolish and wasteful, but the money spent prosecuting this guy would have been spent on some equally foolish legal issue if not for this.
You do understand how lame the 'poop bag' argument sounds right? Im not going to respond to that part.
What's the difference between an otherwise worthless camera and a poop bag? Both were paid for by US taxpayers, both were going to be dumped on the moon and I'm guessing that a ceritified Apollo astronaut lunar poop bag would probably sell for more than an old camera. Why do you refuse to talk about one but think the other is a BIG DEAL?
Remember back then they accounted for weight on everything.
No they didn't. As I said elsewhere, do you really think they weighed every moon rock they collected? Apollo had significant margins for the return flight because they didn't want a simple screwup to kill the crew.
The main thing I am getting at is just ask first, don't just think you are entitle to grab stuff that belongs to someone else and assume ownership of it.
Lots of people go dumpster-diving. This is the lunar equivalent. NASA hasn't given a crap about this camera for decades and now suddenly it's important enough to release the dogs of law?
So no one takes 'em home from work.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
TFA mentions other souvenirs brought back by astronauts. They were not sued, which was attributed to them asking permission first. But did they try to sell their souvenirs? I think that is the critical difference. NASA doesn't have a problem with one of their Moon heroes owning a relic from his famous mission. They don't want a market in questionable NASA artifacts encouraging a black market in stolen artifacts.
If The Government does not pursue this then a very tricky precedent will be set to whit:
1. The camera was and is the property of the The Government, this is not in question.
2. No agent of The Government can declare a property abandoned and therefor subject to salvage without first satisfying all aspects of applicable Unites Sates Code which regulates the disposal of Government property.
3. The former Government Employee improperly removed Government property from the Governments possession.
4. The former Government Employee has now attempted to sell at auction Government property that he has no authority to dispose of.
With those facts in mind...
If the Government allows this improper disposal of Government property to go forward then a precedent is set that would allow a challenge in Federal Court which essentially would be, "Hey you let HIM do it, why can't I do it?". thereby circumventing a reasonable chunk of United States Code.
This is not personal, this is legal and the the decision made by U.S. District Court Judge Daniel Hurley was the correct decision. The Government is actually trying to be really nice about this and doing it in civil court rather then simply arresting him for violating USC Title 18 Section 641 and simply seizing the camera as evidence and prosecuting him.
The best way to have settled this would have been to have his local Senator and Congressman to run a personal bill awarding him the property and then he could have done whatever he wanted with it.
Hey KID! Yeah you, get the fuck off my lawn!
There's probably something to be said though about the fairness of letting him profit while the astronauts who didn't bring things back to sell don't. Assuming he wasn't authorized to take it (he claims otherwise, but for the moment assume NASA is right), then it's kind of a slap in the face to all the others who played by the rules and didn't just grab whatever they could carry and bring it back as well. I'd kinda like to see what other astronauts have to say about this actually....
Some bring out the best in others, some the worst. Some bring out far more.
In other words, it was equipment abandoned outside of any national jurisdiction?
Wouldn't it - and anything else he wanted to take - be his under international salvage laws, then?
If the masses can keep you down, you're not the Ubermensch.
At least you admit it's not based in rationality. It's the youngest of Man's religions, that's for sure. Worshiping passengers that sat in fully automated tin cans is a cargo cult, at the very least. People think that by constantly recreating what happened during the peak of their civilization (energetically speaking), the good times shall return.
I agree wholeheartedly with your assessment, but maybe I'm just too out-of-touch with the way NASA works. It seems like something like the issue you describe would be better handled internally instead of a very public lawsuit?
Dot your damn "i"'s and cross your damn "t"'s. Don't expect that you can just do whatever you want and rely on the good will of others to let you get away with it.
Seems like the solution is to donate the proceeds of the auction to Egar's favorite charity and move on. Too bad he didn't get documentation from his boss that allowed him to keep the camera legally. Bigger question: Why don't we hock some shit that NASA has lying around and use that to pay down the debt?
They are also granted immunity to damages caused to items in their possession as part of a criminal case. A recent example was where agents were joyriding and wrecked a very expensive car in the process http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-ap-mi-fbi-wreckedferrar,0,7734789.story
Its not our government anymore, its theirs and we are going to have a hard time getting it back
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
As I said elsewhere, do you really think they weighed every moon rock they collected?
I can see the mistake now.
"You guys weighed all those rocks before we took off, right"?
"Yeah, well within allowance."
"Well, you remembered that the gravitational field is less on the moon, so something that weighs 1 pound on the moon is actually a lot more massive than something that weighs 1 pound on the earth, right? And that propulsion systems deal with mass, not weight, right?"
Sound of hatch opening and 80% of the rock payload being jetisoned.
There's probably something to be said though about the fairness of letting him profit while the astronauts who didn't bring things back to sell don't. Assuming he wasn't authorized to take it (he claims otherwise, but for the moment assume NASA is right), then it's kind of a slap in the face to all the others who played by the rules and didn't just grab whatever they could carry and bring it back as well. I'd kinda like to see what other astronauts have to say about this actually....
You bring a strong point, but I'd have to argue the point of "profit" for any man who's been fortunate enough to walk amongst the elite who have been to the moon, as many of them have done nothing but profit, capitalizing on that particular aspect of their careers ever since setting foot back on earth. Not saying that's wrong, just saying...
as some can clam they own the camera as it was planed to be left on there land.
The alleged theft occurred on the moon, does the US court have Jurisdiction in this case or should the suit be filed on the moon? Will they also seek a change of venue?
The moon so they may be the owner of the camera or at lest can try to make a court case out of it.
Committed civil servant at work here. The matter is as old as Methuselah, the astronaut is of respectable age, he was the product of an extremely tight selection procedure and the item wasn't reported stolen back then.
How many 16mm cameras does one government need nowadays?
Let the man be! Sheesh!
I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)
He's not trying to keep it, he's trying to sell it.
And unless that ancient piece of hardware is going to command a new multi-billion dollar budget for NASA at auction, NASA should give a shit about this why?
At auction, this thing probably won't even fetch enough to pay for a NASA toilet seat, but could bring significant benefit to the seller(and buyer for that matter), not to mention perhaps getting some good press out of it. Instead, NASA decided to take a shit on it and call out a national hero. Nice, real nice.
NASA, you embarrassed a Nation today. Learn to leave well enough alone.
If thier is LIFE on the MOON and thy came to EARTH and left with all thier so called garbage, would we not be happy. Why do we ( the explorers of outter space) leave our garbage on thier planet. Give this Hero his well earned Dignatee for what years he has left.
Everything that involves humans *in any way* is wrapped up in politics. It is how humans operate. And it sucks.
So "Salvage 1" couldn't have happened?
Am I the only one who remembers that show?
Astronaut and camera are optional. Swiss cheese would be appreciated.
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
Being stricken from the registry only means it's no longer being carried on the books as an active vessels. It remains government (Navy) property until title is specifically transferred or renounced. For example, Arizone was stricken from the registery in 1942 - but the USN still retains title to her.
Thanks for the clarification. However I still wonder if being stricken is some sort of line between being treated as a warship and being treated as a commercial ship with respect to salvage. For example if a ship has been stricken and sinks while being delivered to a buyer who does not yet have title does commercial salvage law apply?
Of course in situations like the Arizona the ship would still be protected as a war grave if not a warship.
>fully automated tin cans
Apollo missions were NOT repeat NOT performed in automatic mode. Many many things (like navigation, trajectory, and trans-lunar/trans-earth/lunar landing course maneuvering) relied on manual optical equipment (celestial navigation), corect hand calculation on tiny calculators, and manual performance (punching the right buttons in the right sequence, manipulating control inputs like throttles and joysticks, correctly reacting to changing flight displays like altitude, rate of descent, artifical horizon, yaw status, computer readouts).
You theoretically could have put an LM onto the moon in full auto mode, but nobody ever did (Lovell on Apollo 13 was going to try it but didn't have the chance). All Apollo landings were made with manual control over the automated flight attitude subroutines, as in "I'll point this thing, speed it up or slow it down, and decide where/how/when to land it" while auto mode kept it properly aligned in XYZ axes. Even with the automated flight and flight subroutines it was hard enough.
So, even with what computerized flight and engine controls they had, those guys FLEW the Apollo missions. Like them or not, those folks weren't just pushing buttons and drinking Tang...
You'd think anything purposely designated to be left on the Moon is about as abandoned as property can get.
And in internationally accepted practice, such as naval salvage, you're entitled to it.
IANAL but I believe the law changes when the vessel is on a military or scientific mission for the government. For example there is currently a dispute over the salvage of gold from a Spanish galleon that sunk centuries ago. One of the points being argued is whether the ship was on a military or scientific mission (spain retains ownership) or a commercial mission (salvager attains ownership).
Space is about the only topic outside of friends and family that can still bring a tear to this grown man's eye.
You've never seen Old Yeller, have you?
"You develop an instant global consciousness, a people orientation, an intense dissastisfaction with the state of the world, and a compulsion to do something about it. From out there on the moon, international politics look so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say 'Look at that, you son of a bitch.'"
- Edgar Mitchell
...than piss away taxpayers money suing a NASA employee for a relic that won't even cover the cost of one DOJ prosecutor?
NASA can make an example of the next astronaut when there's actually a manned program to produce a lawsuit.
There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and AT&T and DuPont, Dow, General Electric, and Exxon
I'm thinking that instead of his practicing ESP up in the capsule, he should really have focused more on precognition.
"A government is a body of people usually -- notably -- ungoverned." -Shepherd Book
...Nazi plunder. Almost 60 years after the war ended, the original owners still have a right of recovery.
What, too Godwin?
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
I had an idea and developed it. The company patented it and now they are trying to sell it. I talked to them, said it was my idea, and more so, the exclusive fruit of my personal history. According to them there is nothing to discuss: they acted within legal bounds, as they were unwilling to bend the rules in any individual case, like mine.
This is an analogy. The camera is like an idea, and the government produced it. Mitchell took it. He valued it. It would have slammed into the moon without him. He gave it historic value. Now the government says that this historic value isn't his.
As a developer with ideas I find this ironic. When it's me, the government doesn't care. In the plot of things it is the voice that says it can take my labour and that I should shut the fuck up. Because it is the law, and only the law is allowed to speak.
It was a part that was created for the purpose of being destroyed. So he took it without asking his boss which seems to be the norm then. Is this a case of "If I can't have it no one can"? It's an old outdated relic that serves no useful purpose aside from being some sort of space flight museum piece.
Let the guy keep/sell it. Jesus. Do we really need to waste money on a trial for this? NASA should be spending its money to further space projects, not going after people over an item destined for destruction they saved 40 years ago as a memento.
No one ever stops to thank banks and insurance companies for buying computers in the 1950s and 1960s, but NASA buys a few IBM mainframes and suddenly going to the Moon is the reason we have computers today. You see what I mean?
The government abandoned the property, he should claim it as salvage.
If that doesn't work, claim the camera was taken outside the jurisdiction of the U.S. or any worldly jurisdiction.
NASA really wants that camera back. I wonder why?
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
Shouldn't they just let this go? These guys risked their lives going there, there were about 1,000,000 ways to die on the way,
and on the Moon itself, can't the guy keep a camera as a keepsake, that was going to be left there anyway...
Seems damned uncharitable to me.
Instead of a camera, pretend this is an IPhone.
Seems there's a bad moon on the rise.
I would have thought including a few extra kilos of cargo would have put in jeopardy some of the calculations needed to get home safely.
"Don't worry Buzz, we've got at least 5 more seconds of thrust available to rendezvous with Eagle 1."
[splutter splutter splutter]
"WTF!!"
They are spending money and time prosecuting this old man for something he did 40 years ago that harmed nobody.
Stop wasting our tax dollars on crap like this.
Has anybody considered that the NASA and the government don't really care about the camera itself, but the **contents** of the camera? That's right, there's a spool of undeveloped film in the camera housing that proves, once and for all, the indisputable fact that . . . * 98 sag s4t398 yq3505q806 ^%@&^#% 0- 956097 . . . . .
When I was a kid my dad always said that if I wanted a camera there were plenty perfectly good ones left behind on the moon.
Well, obviously there aren't as many as he thought.
It's not like he had much fear of being told "No" given the past events and your assertion that the weight wouldn't be a problem.
Did everyone else on that trip ask to bring stuff back? If they didn't, then how much could be brought back without affecting the return trip and would the astronauts know that limit?
If Apollo 13 had had an extra couple of kilos, would that have been a problem? And if this return trip had had a similar accident, would they be safe?
He's being sued to return stolen property.
You have no right to stolen property, therefore no right to sell it and the actual owners get it back.
This guy doesn't want to give up his stolen property.
He's not being charged with theft, that was too long ago.
Doesn't the fact that the theft occurred outside of US territory. I'm sorry, I'll correct: Doesn't the fact that the theft occurred outside the planet messes up all the jurisdiction thing?
Good point about the litigation cost. Gotta wonder how much money will be used up by this rather pointless lawsuit... not to mention all the bad press for NASA, looking like pricks for picking on an 80yo man. Yeah, Mitchell is a bit "woo-woo" weird, and he really shouldn't have taken that camera, etc., etc... big deal. Just issue a press release condemning the auction and be done with it. Get on with the real business of exploring space.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it. --AC
Mod parents up.
In capitalist USA corporations control the government.