The legal fees were paid, the Congressional bill has been passed into law and the matter is over at this point. What it does show is that the “old boys” still have clout on the Hill.

While I still have some questions concerning the timing of the whole issue, the matter has been resolved.

Larry

Thanks for that news. I have this idea about how to free up some funds to compensate the astronauts for their legal fees… A couple of GS salaries ought to do it..

The OIG usually avoided going after the Apollo astronauts. Their reports reflect that strategy. Their reports show that even when they did request guidance in auction sales by the Apollo astronauts, the General Counsel failed to respond in some cases. At least that is what occurred in 2008 when the OIG notified the HQ GC of an March 2008 auction and the GC never responded and the OIG closed the file in July of 2008 with no response.

It wasn’t the OIG. They were not involved in either the Mitchell case or the Lovell seizure.

Larry

Great question. Perhaps it was simply to tie up the OIG’s hands, ore perhaps it was simply busy work by the OIG so that they could avoid looking at real problems.

Another question one has to ask how incompetent a lawyer or accountant or manager has to be before they get fired.

“I am starting to view that incompetence is a NASA commonality.”

Having covered NASA’s response to the impact hazard for 15 years,
I can tell you that NASA still has some great scientists, as well as some very incompetent ones. That extends to NASA management as well.

For example, consider that
1) the Ed Weiler Spec Telescope is some 5 billion over budget,
2) NASA just blew $9 billion or so on ATK’s fiasco
3) There’s no clear NASA in house report on how that happened
4) We have no idea how Griffin came up with his architecture
5) At the same time NASA harassed former employees about their
conveyance of items that were given to them by NASA
6) None of those former employees have received any compensation yet for that legal harassment

As far as cleansing the “temple” goes, one has to consider the general insanity of various space “enthusiasts”. Our ideas about NASA as a “temple” of engineering excellence and their ideas about space “temples” are likely to sadly be far different. Consider the difference between Heinrich’s ideas of “clean” and yours and mine.

I’m sorry that you can not understand Dr. Aldrin’s continued design work over the last 50 years, or beliitle it due to disagreement with his goals or architectures.

If Astronaut (Dr.) Mitchell wishes to use his souvenirs to support his own researches, that is fine with me.

As far as Dr. Armstrong goes, perhaps if he had of been more publicly active earlier, it would have had a good effect on publics’ views on space. (I am very interested in how NASA’s terrible response to Bush Snr’s request in 1989 affected him personally.)

I do know that NASA had been discussing the issues regarding Apollo 15, since 1972, but even then that was due to the unauthorized stowage of covers and not the sale of GI property. Still, there are memos from Kraft, Low and Myers from 1972 and 1973 that stated that the astronauts could keep certain property including items used in the spacecraft. Every one of the astronauts was lead to believe that they were given the property. Furthermore, the Bonded Storage Building manager, Bud Ream, was contacting the guys to ask if they wanted the left over material from their mission before it was “surveyed.” “Surveyed” is the military term for disposal or throwing in the trash.

I can see why the astronauts felt that they were given the material. One thing that everyone should understand is that the astronauts could not take anything out of their spacecraft at the end of a mission. As one Moonwalker put it, “We went in naked (to the suit fitting room) and we left naked (due to lunar quarantine).” All the equipment and personal effects were left in the capsule until it was either returned to the astronaut or went into storage. The astronauts did not “steal” the material as was alleged in the media during the Mitchell court case. The camera was given back to Edgar. He could not have taken it from the spacecraft, since he had to leave the spacecraft without anything including clothes on his back due to the lunar quarantine regulations.

We all learned about FPAS when the Florida based DOJ attorney stated that no one in NASA management had the authority to gift anything to the astronauts. That only Congress could make a gift of government property. One astronaut would later comment that when they presented President Nixon with a tool used on the lunar surface that James Fletcher was present and Dr. Fletcher wasn’t requiring the tool back from the President at that time. That particular piece now resides in the Nixon Library in California.

There was no support for Mitchell at the time of his case and he was looking at facing a federal agency being represented by the legal arm of the federal government in a federal court presided over by a federal judge. The cost of the case was estimated to be over $100,000 and he had just had his motion to dismiss the case denied by that federal judge. At that point, Mitchell had a better chance of getting struck by lightning twice, then winning the case. He capitulated due to the immense costs involved and still smarts over being accused of thievery by the media and the public. That all changed when the sights were set on Jim Lovell.

Again, I think we are all trying to understand why NASA changed it’s mind on the pursuit of these artifacts after so many years. Especially, since the NASA OIG reported the sale of these artifacts to the agency over the past twenty years.

Larry

This legislation was not intended to defend the right of astronauts to be entrepreneurs and sell their mementos, but was just intended to clean up a serious legal mess. That’s why it was specific to astronauts, I guess.

Apparently, as you say, it was just a big mistake that FPAS was not followed by NASA back in the day. One might wonder why. How could such an important statute be ignored? Here’s my guess. First and foremost, the property managers believed the legend that NASA was trying to create. This was that these saints of exploration were noble and ethical as well as heroes. In casually giving them these souvenirs of their journey, they would never be expected do something as crass as trying to sell them for profit. That was probably a good enough reason to keep the lawyers out of the way.

Your conclusion on tying the value of flown artifacts to the astronauts’ reputation is a bit of a stretch. To paraphrase, It’s not about the astronauts, it’s about the artifacts.

That’s possible. You’re saying that even as these astronauts sully their legacy by selling this stuff, that sullied legacy doesn’t affect the value of the relics they sell. That could well be true. One wonders, however, if Buzz hadn’t cashed in on so many of his souvenirs, whether they might have even more value than they do now. I’ll bet that if Neil Armstrong had, just before he died, offered one of his Apollo 11 mementos up for sale, its value would have been absolutely through the roof. Far greater than the same Apollo 11 memento from Buzz. Why? Because this memento would have come from someone who was an extraordinarily private person who took great pride in that privacy. We respected him enormously for that demeanor. The value would then have been more about Neil Armstrong than about the memento itself.

If that single page from that Gemini pad serves to inspire your friend and his friends, I can see absolutely no harm done, but instead a lot of good.

It is indeed gratifying that an account executive and the investment bankers that visit him in his 65th floor office get inspired. But to the extent this is inspirational stuff, one wonders how many more people could have been inspired by it if it were in a museum. But maybe this account executive and his investment banker friends don’t go to museums? Yes, this could be looked at as remedial inspiration for investment bankers who never go to museums! Take pity on them.

In fact, it’s probably not even inspirational stuff. A lot of it is as inspirational as a head of a buck that comes out of a taxidermist. I’m guessing it’s often a symbol for collecting success and money to burn. Less a “they’re so good for doing it” token to hang on your wall, and more a “I’m so good for having it” token.

“It was apparently a good enough argument that Congress agreed that the law needed to be changed.”

Maybe but my guess is that what prompted the movement was the overreaction on NASA’s part…whoever thought that notion up;; well it is one of the things that has made me question Bolden’s leadership. That should have been stopped at the source…

It reminds me of the time that I contacted the space station one late night coming home from KEFD and later in the day the PAO was upset about the conversation… far to sensitive.

RGO WB5MZO

“That’s an excellent point. But there’s a big difference. These private astronauts are not going to be revered as the saints of exploration. They’ll be smiled at and cheered on, but the note pads they breathe on won’t turn into secondary relics of high value. Not sure if these private astronauts will even be “heroes”. It remains to be seen if these private astronauts can be spun as representing the country as much as they represent their brand. ”

HMM not so sure about that.

By the time we go back to the Moon (or someone does but I’ll bet dollars the vehicle that lands people on the Moon has for its protection “the flag of The United States” (sorry I like that from TWW)…it will be a significant distance from when Armstong through Geno did it and for the “old” it might not be as much; but for the folks under 40 who will be near 50 and below when it happens…it will be “the first time”.

How or if they become heroes will depend on a lot of factors not the least of which in my view is how they associate with in my belief; the country. Musk for instance is doing very smart things…his vehicles have the flag of the country on them (no reason for him to) and he associates his efforts with that of the countries.

The country is changing as well (something that the GOP is having a hard time with) the notion of doing things by the government just to prove we are tough…is fading.

It might be as you suggest; but somehow I suspect not. See Charles Slim Lindbergh. RGO