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.

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[Rurik]

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?"

Re:He probably has a grudge

[Anonymous Coward]

You think it's funny to laugh about the 'ignorant' Alabama-man because it is easier than wrapping your brain around the fact that Alabama put man on the moon.

Re:Not a loss - this is the correct outcome.

[Aboroth]

That is an extremely short-sighted viewpoint. Money isn't everything. First of all, if all you care about it direct funding from it, they would easily be able to monetize this by reselling it at auction. Putting it in a museum would enrich people's lives, which is invaluable. Having displays with things like this, are ways people get inspired to do what they can to help in space exploration, either through their own talents or with donations. These "antiques" could very well inspire the next generation of space explorers, which are kind of necessary because the ones we have now are expected to die at some point.

Re:I'll bite

[cdrudge]

NASA dragged its feet contacting the new owner, who apparently didn't know its value.

Sure NASA dragged it's feet. But I wonder if the historian walked over to the neighbor's house, knocked on the door, and mentioned that he though the guy had a piece of priceless artifact from NASA's history just sitting there. Even if the guy wasn't interested in contacting NASA right then, at least he would have known before he just scrapped it.

spent much of 2014 attempting to acquire

[Culture20]

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.

Re: I'll bite

[Coren22]

Just look at the treatment to Lee's battle flag recently, that is pure racism against the people who fought for state's rights. (hint, the average southerner had nothing to do with slavery, the slave owners were too wealthy to fight in the war).

Racism is ok (to the Democrats) when it is white people that are the butt of the joke, they also don't like Asians for some reason, so making fun of natives of India, and China, is perfectly acceptable, but talk about how 90% of gang violence is black people, or that there are crimes being committed against the Hispanics crossing the border (as Trump did), and suddenly you are a terrible racist.