Selling History Or Just Personal Stuff? (Update)
NASA Administrator Meets With Apollo Astronauts – Agency Will Work Cooperatively to Resolve Artifact Ownership Issues
“I believe there have been fundamental misunderstandings and unclear policies regarding items from the Mercury, Gemini, Apollo and Skylab programs, and NASA appreciates the position of the astronauts, museums, learning institutions and others who have these historic artifacts in personal and private collections.”
NASA questions Apollo 13 commander’s sale of list, AP
“NASA spokesman Bob Jacobs said the lawsuit and Lovell inquiry do not represent an aggressive, broad new agency effort to recover space items. “It’s a challenge to continually monitor the growing auctions community, which is usually how these items come to light,” he said in an email. “This latest issue demonstrates a need to reach out to former astronauts and other former agency personnel who may have these kind of items.”
NASA’s Inconsistent Policy Regarding The Sale Of Apollo Era Items
“It should be abundantly clear by now that the NASA IG and General Counsel offices have no consistent policy whatsoever when it comes to selling historic Apollo era artifacts. In some cases you can sell pieces of the Moon, and in other cases you cannot. In some cases you can sell items used during Apollo missions, in other cases, you cannot. And of course, it is also acceptable practice to rough up little old ladies and threaten lawsuits against elderly former astronauts.”
– Apollo 13 checklist brings $388,375 at Auction, earlier post
– NASA OIG Admits The Obvious About Moon Rocks, earlier post
Sorry, this should never have been ever allowed to happen. Doesn’t anyone at NASA have a sense of history? With all do respect to astronaut Lovell, he should never have been allowed to take this.
But since the horse is out of the barn, this could all be solved with a simple letter from the NASA director to all ex-NASA employees. It should state that any NASA (i.e. U.S. taxpayer) equipment that they may be in possession of may be retained by them but can not be sold or given away and upon their death all such material has to be returned to NASA.
This doesn’t include any personal items that astronauts are allowed to take on their missions.
This item belongs in the Smithsonian Air & Space museum and I’m kind of shocked that Mr. Lovell doesn’t realize this. It is not like he destitute and really needs this money. He has his restaurant and his speaking engagements in addition to his military and NASA pensions.
This item is little different from a page from the logbook of Columbus’ first voyage and should be treated accordingly – in my opinion.
Do you guys have any idea how much crap we throw away at NASA? It’s not like there’s a budget for warehousing all this stuff indefinitely. I have space stuff in my garage that I have kept as souvenirs that we were throwing in the dumpster otherwise. I have no doubt a lot of this stuff people are complaining about are just things no one wanted or ever thought were important and just wound up in a box in the bottom of his closet.
I am reminded of people who put out the trash, and are then upset when pickers go through it. It had no value, until it did to someone else.
I don’t think this issue is as simple as it at first seems. Consider that there are two separate components — the information recorded in/on the item and the item (artifact) itself. They are not one and the same and so should be assessed separately. Almost without exception, the recorded information is available repeatedly from other sources, and is not unique. Although the information is certainly historically valuable, it has no intrinsic value (actually I should be avoiding the word value, because it represents only a subjective worth).
As a completely separate issue, we have the item/artifact on/in which the information is stored. Once again, it can only be assigned a subjective worth, but it differs from the information that it contains in that it is unique, or at least a very limited item.
So, if we accept that Lovell’s physical list is the only item that can be challenged, as opposed to the information it contains, then it all comes back to what others have said in response to previous threads on this issue: what rules, restrictions, contracts, etc., were in place at the time when Lovell’s list (or other similar artifact) was created and used, which is something that, if I understand it correctly, still hasn’t been sorted out. But the matter can only be settled, in my opinion, in the context of the rules of the game that existed then, not now or at any time in between — you can’t make retroactive changes to laws and/or regulations; it is simply not reasonable to suggest doing so.
If Jim Lovell has had this article in his possession all these years, then he presumably had approved possession within the context of the rules/laws that applied then.
If he in fact has illegal possession of the artifact (as defined by the rules/laws at the time of its creation and use), then that is a whole different matter, and it would come down to a case by case assessment for each artifact, not a global ruling as many have suggested.
So, all of this is nothing more than going around in circles until someone can produce the laws and NASA policies that were in force when the list was created and used, which would seem to me to be fairly obvious and shouldn’t be too difficult to accomplish (I’d start by asking the NASA History Office).
One final consideration: once the pertinent laws/rules/policies have been dug up, if it should happen that they differ radically from what the rest of the industry is governed by in their jobs (which wouldn’t surprise me), is that acceptable? Unless we’re talking about unique national heritage items or situations where signed agreements are in place, should astronauts, or other NASA employees, be treated any differently than anyone else (if they are)?
Steve
Forty years ago we had a space agency capable of sending our astronauts to the Moon. Today, we have a space agency that harasses our heroes and is incapable of sending anyone, anywhere. This is pathetic. Had Jim Lovell left the checklist at NASA it would have most likely ended up in the dumpster. NASA needs to remember that it depends on public support and this is a certain way to lose it. Backoff!
I would offer that these little trinkets are peanuts in the scheme of things. My thoughts about this are that these people wrote a blank check to the USA the payment of the check was their life. If Jim or Rusty, Gene or Charlie or any brave soul who braved the unknown wants to sell a trinket that was on their flight and of no use to anyone outside of collectors…So be it! The government AND NASA have bigger fish to fry…
What an amazing interview. I really like how the anchor at the end acknowledged just how special all these men are.
Respectfully,
Andrew Gasser
TEA Party in Space
What an awesome interview. What a rare treat to see four American heroes. I thought it was fitting how Ms. Kelley acknowledged the “Rare Air” of that interview.
Respectfully,
Andrew Gasser
TEA Party in Space
This from the people who destroyed the tooling for the Saturn V! What cheek they have!