If NASA held an auction...

[Winston]

... over some of the stuff they left on the Moon - landers, rovers, flags, seismographs and other measuring devices - would you be interested in bidding, provided you had the funds necessary for it?

And how about other, shall we say not-easily retrievable, space equipment. Located on other planets we've probed, so you'd know it'd still be there for your descendants to claim.

This stuff could be worth a fortune one day, and would probably be worth investing some amount in, eventhough you'll never actually get your own hands on it.

I'd like to maybe get the hammer that Jack Schmitt hurled "for miles and miles" as one of his last actions on the lunar surface during Apollo XVII. I think my mind would be more at peace knowing I had a hammer up there on the Moon.

[Lancer]

Then you would need meteor insurance to cover your property...

Does NASA actually still own that stuff or is it considered abandoned salvage?

[Winston]

That's a good question. And an interesting one as well, since if NASA isn't laying claim to it, it's probably just a matter of time before some private citizen does and starts auctioning it off.

[General Ludd]

Absolutely.


And then I would buy a star, and arrange for my remains to be shot into orbit apon my death.

[mrmitchell]

It would all be priceless. I put down a trillion dollars on all of it if it went up to auction and got proper prices.

[Winston]

I read some time ago that a guy had bought all the original data-sets from the Soviet missions to Venus in the 60's. He had started converting and storing the data on his computer and had been able to restore the pictures in a quality and detail that was many times better than what had been known at the time of the missions, and in the years inbetween. He really made some important new discoveries and advanced the knowledge of Venus, something few would have thought of with all the focus being on new and pioneering missions, not so much on what already took place.

[Lancer]

Winston, after a certain amount of time (days?) wrecked ships become salvage. I kind of doubt that this includes ships from national navies, but maybe. Could the US have raised the Kursk and not given it back? The CIA did try once to raise a Sov sub, read a book on the attempt some years back. Kept it a secret too, don't recall if they had to give the useless chunks they got back to the Sovs...

[Az]

It will be about as much yours as all that moon real-estate being sold, i.e. not at all.

[Winston]

Maybe it's become salvage as you say, but I would assume that since these things are of such historic importance to NASA, they would not have accepted that it wasn't their property still.

NASA would say "Hang on, we're in the proces of retrieving it, it's not abandoned."

[Lancer]

We really need to get a space lawyer in here who scecializes in salvage.

Anyone?

[Winston]

Originally posted by Az
It will be about as much yours as all that moon real-estate being sold, i.e. not at all.

I don't necessarily think so. You can't buy/sell bits of the Moon, since nobody owns it in the first place. But artifacts from the lunar missions were (are?) owned and paid for by NASA, so it would be a legitimate purchase if they put it up for sale.

[General Ludd]

Originally posted by Winston


I don't necessarily think so. You can't buy/sell bits of the Moon, since nobody owns it in the first place

Nobody owned the earth in the first place, either.

[Winston]

Yes, but then the meek inherited it.

[Az]

Yeah, that first moment of ownership, that first claim... who can really claim the moon?

[:) Smiley]

What Earth are you living on?