It turns out that trying to sell moon dust that was taken from the stomachs of roaches does not go well with NASA.
The space agency requested that the auction house stop selling the once-digested lunar sample. The lot in question, "Apollo 11 lunar soil experiment (Cockroaches, Slides, and Post-Destructive Testing Specimen)", had been scheduled to go under the hammer on Thursday evening.
The materials used in the experiment are owned by NASA.
The research into the effects of lunar material on german roaches is one of the things under contention. In the aftermath of the 1969 Apollo 11 lunar landing mission, NASA fed the insects moon dust. After no ill-effects were seen, the astronauts were handed over to an entomologist for further study.
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NASA fed Apollo 11 moon rocks to roaches.
There was a small amount of moon dust that was taken from the corpses of three of the dead roaches and two boxes of tissue slides that were used to study them.
After rejecting NASA's request to stop the sale, the auction house asked the agency to explain how it came to its decision. The firm changed its position after more correspondence.
The role these roaches played in the U.S. space program is unquestioned. Mark Zaid, the attorney for RR Auction, said that they always try to cooperate with the U.S. government on its claims of ownership.
The lunar material was expected to sell for as much as $400,000 prior to the start of the auction. Twelve bids totaling $36,300 were received at the time of the withdrawal.
The Apollo 11 archive had been sold before. The cockroaches and moon dust was sold by the family to the former Regency-Superior Galleries of Beverly Hills in 2010 for $10,000.
NASA didn't know about the sale from 12 years ago. The potential sale of the items is not made legal by the auction. These items are being sold in an improper and illegal manner.
There are only two cases where moon material has been legally sold after the lot was pulled. A small sample of Apollo 11 moon dust was auctioned off by Bonhams in April. The lunar samples had been released by NASA after a number of lawsuits.
Prior to that, three tiny pebbles brought back by the former Soviet Union's Luna 16 robotic probe was sold by the same company.
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