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Alabama Man Sold a Priceless Apollo-Era Lunar Rover Protoype For Scrap Metal (vice.com)
Jason Koebler writes: An Alabama man allowed an Apollo-era lunar rover prototype to rot in his backyard before ultimately selling it to a junkyard for scrap metal last year, according to documents acquired from NASA as part of a Freedom of Information Act request. NASA spent much of 2014 attempting to acquire the priceless artifact for display in a museum, but it was ultimately destroyed before the agency could recover it.
What the heck was he doing with a lunar rover prototype in Alabama?
sigs are for losers (except to point out that sigs are for losers)
to be idiots
1. up on blocks.
2. Huntsville.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
I guess it wasn't priceless then.
Man's gotta get his meth fix, at all costs.
He probably has a grudge against NASA for proving that the Earth isn't flat.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
NASA Agency Bureaucracy Lets Historic Antique Slip From Their Fingers
If it didn't take them six months to reach out... Even a quick call "Hey, this is NASA. We heard you have one of our rovers. Could we just send someone over to verify?"
Truly an example where one person's trash is another person's treasure. (or is it vice-versa).
. . . would be to let him know how much the thing was worth. He stole it and sold it as scrap - could have been a millionaire today :-/
A glorified dune buggy is considered "priceless"? It's not like it went to the moon or anything.
And clearly there were better models that should be even more priceless, since it was just a prototype.
When you can't outbid a scrap metal dealer (or, if you must, can't convince the scrap metal dealer in question to flip the item to you for a quick 100% profit), how much effort were you really putting into this?
Not anymore...
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
norhing of value was lost.
I like NASA. I like space exploration. However, I don't like NASA spending its limited time and resources to buy up antiques when it could be working on MORE space exploration.
...is sure giving Florida Man a run for his money lately!
. . . would be to let him know how much the thing was worth. He stole it and sold it as scrap - could have been a millionaire today :-/
Except you must have missed the part where the person died and the family sold it off for scrap when they were settling the estate... Probably looked like some broken dune buggy project to them.
Andy had the right idea. Build a rocket, go to the moon, and bring back all the scrap NASA left behind. Can't get over how much this mirrors "Salvage 1".
Now all we need is some Monohydrazine.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
So how did the old owner come in possession of the lunar rover prototype ? This is the interesting question.
What's next, hillbilly finds an old Mercury capsule in his backyard and NASA wants it back ?
Huntsville Alabama is where they hid Von Braun so he wouldn't get lynched. As a result, a lot of Space Research happens there. See "Rocket City Rednecks", a bad reality TV show where some NASA engineer spends his weekends making dumb shit out of junk with his redneck buddies.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdOPBP9vuZA
Seems...fitting for some reason. Don't know why, just does.
America put a man on the moon, we just used your real estate so if anything went wrong, nothing important would be damaged.
...is that there is not a current lunar lander model people can look at...as in circa 2015.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
I call dibs on the ones on the moon.
There's three of them up there, just waiting to be salvaged.
there are 3 kinds of people:
* those who can count
* those who can't
this definitely makes the most logical sense
NASA spent much of 2014 attempting to acquire the priceless artifact for display in a museum
Sounds like they didn't try too hard if they couldn't compete with a scrap yard.
I remember one (A rover) in the Saturn V hall.
... I'll have a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster with a side of Plutonium Nyborg
[OUTRO... roll credits... R.E.M's "Man on the Moon" ...if you believed they put a man on the moon....
]
in his back yard. He worked at Draper Labs in Cambridge. They were going to throw it away.
It wasn't that fantastic a thing -- basically a fiberglass cone in roughly the shape of the
Command Module with just a few non-functional (i.e. flat with painted buttons and toggles)
control panels. I guess they used it to make sure things would fit. Still it was
pretty cool. This was in the early 70s.
Should read..."Alabama Man Removes Junk from His Yard". Of course, no one would believe it.
Give a hand, not a hand-out.
unless he STOLE the rover, the fact that he has it, and NASA doesn't, probably means that nobody in NASA cared for 50 years.
So don't be too hard on this guy just cause he didn't care -- after all, neither did NASA
Seriously, who doesn't just ask the guy, "how much for that?" I know I would have if I knew what it was. For scrap value, just bust out the wallet; square up with NASA later or keep it if they don't. I always taught my kids to, at least, ask. You would be surprised what happens when you do. I could have had a rover or the country could have had a rover back, but either is better than scrap...
thanks to South Park.
heard about the Internet or eBay in the neighborhood.
Nah, they marry their (proper spelling, by the way) in the hills of West Virginia. And, oddly, Portugal. You can marry your sister in Portugal. :/ At least that's what the news said quite a while back - 'twas on Fark as I recall. No, I have no idea why. Well, no... I know why it was on Fark. I don't know why they allowed it. It was a rather specific amendment, as I recall.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
That's what they get for building Rocket City USA in a state full of imbred redneck 'tards who never got over the fact that a black man is allowed by law to vote. Let alone hold the highest office in the nation.
That's not what the head of NASA, Charles Bolden says. Mr. Bolden explains their top three priorities as:
When I became the Nasa administrator, he [Obama] charged me with three things.
One, he wanted me to help reinspire children to want to get into science and math;
he wanted me to expand our international relationships;
and third, and perhaps foremost, he wanted me to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good
At least in the administrative areas, where profligate spending of money is a job requirement.
I love it when people can't spell "incompetence" ...
You should have said "We heard you had one of our RED ROVERS, send someone on over."
If they don't get that, then tell them to get off your lawn.
http://motherboard.vice.com/re... The junk yard had kept it because they somewhat knew what it was.
Which rights specifically, other than their presumed right to own people and use them for their own economic gain?
NASA should have sent the History Channel's American Pickers crew to buy the piece of historical junk :-)
Whether or not this guy is a "hero" is still up in the air in my mind, he deserves to get his money back and maybe a little finders fee/perks on top of it but anything beyond would seem to negate that title.
Why didn't he sell/auction it on eBay ?