A bag brought on board the historic Apollo 11 spacecraft for its moon-landing journey and used to hold the world’s first sample of lunar material is now the source of a legal battle after the US government accidentally sold it during the criminal hearings against the Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center’s ex-director.
The white bag, which journeyed on the June 1969 mission and has lunar material in its fabric, is “a rare artifact, if not a national treasure,” according to the government, reports Fox News.
The controversy is the latest twist in the case of Max Ary, who was founder, CEO and president of the Cosmosphere in Hutchinson from 1976 to 2002, who was tried and convicted in 2005 for stealing and selling off museum artifacts.
During his trial, it was revealed that hundreds of space artifacts and memorabilia had disappeared, some of which were on loan from NASA. The lunar bag was found in a box in Ary’s garage in 2003 during an official search.
The US Attorney’s Office asked a federal judge to dismiss the final forfeiture order and rescind the sale of the bag because the bag was misidentified and therefore NASA was not properly informed of its forfeiture.
The lunar bag was sold at a government auction on February 15, 2015 to Nancy Carlson of Illinois for $995. NASA found out that the Apollo 11 bag had been sold without permission or notification when Carlson sent it to the Johnson Space Center in Houston for authentication. Carlson also sued NASA in June in an Illinois federal court, demanding that the bag be returned to her.
Federal prosecutors are asking the federal judge who handled Ary’s criminal case and resulting forfeiture to rescind the sale and give Carlson back her money.
Two lunar bags were supposedly confused as one after inventory identification numbers for both were combined on some spreadsheets, government officials said.
The second bag was a lunar sample bag on the Apollo 17 spacecraft that flew to the moon’s surface on the Lunar Module Challenger. Ary sold that bag at a 2001 auction for $24,150 and was recovered later during the government investigation.
Ary was sentenced to three years in prison and ordered to pay $132,274 in damages. He is now a free man. He has also maintained his innocence in the whole matter, saying he accidentally mixed up museum artifacts with his private collection.
