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Copyright 2014 by Attorney Carlos Gamino
By Carlos Gamino
Nancy Lee Carlson, the woman who paid $995 for a bag of moon dust gathered during the Apollo 11 mission in 1969, will be selling the bag at auction, where experts say it could bring in as much as $4 million.
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Moon Dust More Expensive Than Any Other Kind of Dust
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The bag, which Carlson bought a few years ago, was verified to be the bag that Neil Armstrong filled with rocks from the moon’s Sea of Tranquility. He gave the bag to a laboratory in Houston, where they emptied out the rocks… and lost track of the bag, marked “Lunar Sample Return.”
Carlson sent the bag to NASA and asked them to verify it was real after she made the purchase, but the space agency claimed it was actually their property and refused to send it back. After a long court battle, a judge ruled that the bag does, in fact, belong to Carlson—as does the moon dust inside it. NASA officials had to send the bag back to Carlson, who’s now selling it on July 20 at a Sotheby’s auction.
NASA officials claim that the bag is a national treasure and should be on public display—not in a private collection. NASA doesn’t allow anyone to own parts of the moon, which is understandable.
With SpaceX working on commercial moon travel, I wonder how long that’s going to hold up.
What Do You Think?
Do you think the court was right to award the bag to the woman, or is it truly a national treasure that should be on public display in the Smithsonian or another museum? I’d love to hear your take on it, so please share your thoughts on Facebook or Twitter!
