The Apollo 13 Saga Contines...

[Death Engineering]

 

"We still have a problem?!?"

 

Several months ago I used a popular online auction site to bid on and win a small piece of the interior cloth from the Apollo 13 Lunar Module. This would have been left on the moon had the mission gone to plan, but those familiar with history or the Tom Hanks film may recall that as the crew approached Earth, they needed ballast from the LM to account for missing lunar material mass. 

The finger-nail sized piece of cloth that I had seen and attempted to acquire was among the bits that the crew saved from the LM moments before jettisoning their "lifeboat". Currently, this item has been lost in transit, sent on a journey requiring many things to come together in order to deliver it safely to its destination and much like during its original trip to the moon it "had a problem".

I thought it somewhat fitting, ironic even, that this would happen; that an artifact from Apollo 13 would make it all the way to the moon and back despite overwhelming odds only to be lost by the posties. Despite several investigations through the USPS, the package remains on the dark side of the moon.

I've just received word that the US Congressman's office where the package originated is now involved in the investigation and hopefully some progress will be made in recovering this tiny although fascinating piece of American history.

I'll post updates as I get them...

Edited July 8, 2016 by Death Engineering

[Elthy]

How would you know its from Apollo 13 and not just some cloth someone found in his basement?

[p1t1o]

Wouldn't it have been illegal for them to have it or something? I know bits of Columbia are illegal to own. If it was genuine - "Lost in the post" is a bit of a red flag in that regard.

Wait did I read that correctly, a congressman was auctioning it off?

Interesting story, keep it coming

[cubinator]

1 hour ago, p1t1o said:

Wouldn't it have been illegal for them to have it or something? I know bits of Columbia are illegal to own.

Really? I have a "Mini Museum" and it contains a tiny piece of foil from Columbia. The Mini Museum creator bought the foil directly from Buzz Aldrin, if I recall correctly. I imagine it would be quite illegal to go into the exhibit at the NASM and start poking at the heat shield with a chisel, though.  

...or were you talking about the space shuttle?

Edited July 8, 2016 by cubinator

[p1t1o]

13 minutes ago, cubinator said:

Really? I have a "Mini Museum" and it contains a tiny piece of foil from Columbia. The Mini Museum creator bought the foil directly from Buzz Aldrin, if I recall correctly. I imagine it would be quite illegal to go into the exhibit at the NASM and start poking at the heat shield with a chisel, though.  

...or were you talking about the space shuttle?

Yeah, the shuttle. I assumed it extended to all NASA property, but I have no specific knowledge.

 

[cubinator]

1 minute ago, p1t1o said:

Yeah, the shuttle. I assumed it extended to all NASA property, but I have no specific knowledge.

 

It would be easier if they could just think of original names for every ship!

So no, there are artifacts from at least some ships available.

[razark]

1 hour ago, cubinator said:

It would be easier if they could just think of original names for every ship!

Like OV-102?

My father has a piece of tile from Columbia.  It was part of the scrap from trimming the tiles to their final shape during the original construction.  Considering the number of damaged tiles that had to be replaced between flights, I wouldn't be surprised that a number of them have made it into private collections over the life of the program.

[Nibb31]

In theory, government property cannot be sold without going through an extensive process. Most of the artifacts from the space programs were either given away (tiles from the Shuttle program, pieces of kapton from Apollo, etc...) or stolen (even if it was stuff that was to be trashed or that was forgotten in a closet, it was still government property). The astronauts themselves got to keep a couple of bits and pieces from various craft, some of which were sold for quite a hefty sum... 

[Camacha]

2 hours ago, Nibb31 said:

In theory, government property cannot be sold without going through an extensive process. Most of the artifacts from the space programs were either given away (tiles from the Shuttle program, pieces of kapton from Apollo, etc...) or stolen (even if it was stuff that was to be trashed or that was forgotten in a closet, it was still government property). The astronauts themselves got to keep a couple of bits and pieces from various craft, some of which were sold for quite a hefty sum... 

In a lot of countries, things thrown in the trash or something akin to it are considered up for grabs. If something actually was trashed, it is fair game.

In the Colombia case, it might be a bit more complicated, as the pieces were not intentionally discarded and could also be part of an investigation. On the other hand, just looking at it without emotion, it seems somewhat unreasonable to claim ownership of something that is scattered across vast tracts of land. It seems to mostly boil down to repressing trophy hunting on what is still a delicate matter and one of national pride.

[razark]

1 hour ago, Camacha said:

In the Colombia case, it might be a bit more complicated, as the pieces were not intentionally discarded and could also be part of an investigation.

Every single piece of debris was possibly needed for the investigation.  Aside from that, you have to consider that the debris also included potentially hazardous chemicals and human remains.

[Camacha]

Just now, razark said:

Every single piece of debris was possibly needed for the investigation.  Aside from that, you have to consider that the debris also included potentially hazardous chemicals and human remains.

I do not think there still is an active investigation. The pieces being hazardous would be an argument to want to get them out of nature and any small human remains will have been gone or would probably be pretty obvious.

[razark]

1 minute ago, Camacha said:

I do not think there still is an active investigation. The pieces being hazardous would be an argument to want to get them out of nature and any small human remains will have been gone or would probably be pretty obvious.

Ah, you mean at the current time.  I misunderstood.

 

I lived in East Texas at the time, so I actually dealt with people who intended to go out and collect debris.

[Plusck]

11 hours ago, Camacha said:

In a lot of countries, things thrown in the trash or something akin to it are considered up for grabs. If something actually was trashed, it is fair game.

In the Colombia case, it might be a bit more complicated, as the pieces were not intentionally discarded and could also be part of an investigation. On the other hand, just looking at it without emotion, it seems somewhat unreasonable to claim ownership of something that is scattered across vast tracts of land. It seems to mostly boil down to repressing trophy hunting on what is still a delicate matter and one of national pride.

It's a legal minefield in most places. Unless the trashed item has actually been dumped (which would count as littering...) there is nothing to say that the person has abandoned ownership or has not transferred ownership to someone else (i.e. to a skip's owners who factor scrap metal profits into demolition costs, or to the municipal cogeneration plant which needs burnable stuff for their incinerators). Since people pay good money for bits of spacecraft, they certainly have value and therefore, by definition, are unlikely to be "abandoned".

A related legal confusion arises with the notion of "claiming ownership": nobody needs to "claim" ownership for ownership to be very real and effective. Therefore no claim of ownership is required for theft to occur. Ownership is the default state of anything which is not abandoned or has never been owned. A thief's argument that "nobody said it was theirs" is no defence.

Most jurisdictions gravitate around a two-pronged definition (taking + denying the owner of his rights) whereby you commit theft if you take something which you know is owned by someone else, and if you keep it as if you were the owner. That second part generally crystallises if you make no effort to find the owner: it's technically theft if you keep a tyre iron that you find by the side of the road, but there is often no reasonable way to find the owner; on the other hand there is no doubt who you should contact if you find a bit of space shuttle. Since everybody knows that NASA was actively requesting the return of the bits, then you can't ever claim that it isn't theft if you just hold on to it.

And the final legal minefield for the "theft" question is the statute of limitations (or prescription) for theft. Some jurisdictions count from the time the crime is committed, others from the time it is discovered. In the latter case, if law enforcement or the rightful owner don't know you have the object in question, you can never start the clock running and therefore can never escape the charge of theft on the day you try to sell what you stole.

There is a whole other question of nemo dat and buying in good faith, which people seem to ignore unless the original owner makes a big deal about it. In practice, it would seem that just saying that it came from "a NASA contractor" is as good as any other anti-tiger charm for most such sales of spacecraft parts.

I understand what you mean about repressing trophy hunters, though, and I'm sure that that factors into it.

[Death Engineering]

 

The sage mostly fizzles out at the end. I've received a full credit and contact from the Congressman's office and USPS seemed to say that "Ya, it's gone.".

Conspiracy?

[ZooNamedGames]

Well owning several space artifacts myself (sadly none as significant as yours) I know the pains of risking on buying such a thing. 

Just out of curiosity, how much was it worth? 

[Death Engineering]

On 7/20/2016 at 0:02 PM, ZooNamedGames said:

Well owning several space artifacts myself (sadly none as significant as yours) I know the pains of risking on buying such a thing. 

Just out of curiosity, how much was it worth? 

I paid and was refunded  $200 USD.  Yeah major bummer.

[ZooNamedGames]

6 minutes ago, Death Engineering said:

I paid and was refunded  $200 USD.  Yeah major bummer.

I bought something space related that was just a tad bit more expensive but again, less epic than your loss :/ .