Apollo 11 Moon Dust Samples Go Up for Auction Against NASA’s Wishes

[Still Waters]

The first-ever collected sample of moon dust is headed to auction in New York on April 13, against the wishes of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), according to Forbes’ Carlie Porterfield. Bonhams, the auction house conducting the sale, estimates the specimens from Neil Armstrong’s famous Apollo 11 moon walk could fetch between $800,000 to $1.2 million, according to a press release. Portions of the proceeds will go to scientific charities.

This is the first time NASA-verified moon dust will be legally sold, despite the space organization’s efforts, according to Rebecca Heilweil for Vox. NASA’s battle to keep lunar dust out of private hands goes back decades, leading to numerous court disputes against individuals who have somehow obtained samples from the organization’s 1969 Apollo program. While NASA has won many of these disputes, ownership claims over the Bonham auction dust samples broke free of the legal hurdles after the space agency lost a number of court battles.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/apollo-11-moon-dust-samples-go-up-for-auction-against-nasas-wishes-180979859/

https://www.vox.com/recode/23003221/nasa-apollo-11-auction-moon-dust

[+and-then]

Considering the fact that new missions there may soon become relatively routine, I'd say "moon dust" is apt to become common and worth far less in a few years but I guess since it was the first ever collected...

[Still Waters]

NASA: Give us back our moon dust and cockroaches

The space agency has asked Boston-based RR Auction to halt the sale of moon dust collected during the 1969 Apollo 11 mission that had subsequently been fed to cockroaches during an experiment to determine if the lunar rock contained any sort of pathogen that posed a threat to terrestrial life.

The material, a NASA lawyer said in a letter to the auctioneer, still belongs to the federal government.

The material from the experiment, including a vial with about 40 milligrams of moon dust and three cockroach carcasses, was expected to sell for at least $400,000, but has been pulled from the auction block, RR said Thursday.

https://phys.org/news/2022-06-nasa-moon-cockroaches.html