NASA needs its moon mud and cockroaches again.
The area company has requested Boston-based RR Auction to halt the sale of moon mud collected in the course of the 1969 Apollo 11 mission that had subsequently been fed to cockroaches throughout an experiment to find out if the lunar rock contained any kind of pathogen that posed a menace to terrestrial life.
The materials, a NASA lawyer stated in a letter to the auctioneer, nonetheless belongs to the federal authorities.
The materials from the experiment, together with a vial with about 40 milligrams of moon mud and three cockroach carcasses, was anticipated to promote for no less than $400,000, however has been pulled from the public sale block, RR stated Thursday.
“All Apollo samples, as stipulated in this collection of items, belong to NASA and no person, university, or other entity has ever been given permission to keep them after analysis, destruction, or other use for any purpose, especially for sale or individual display,” stated NASA’s letter dated June 15.
It went on: “We are requesting that you no longer facilitate the sale of any and all items containing the Apollo 11 Lunar Soil Experiment (the cockroaches, slides, and post-destructive testing specimen) by immediately stopping the bidding process,” NASA wrote.
In one other letter dated June 22, NASA’s lawyer requested RR Auction to work with the present proprietor of the fabric to return it to the federal authorities.
The Apollo 11 mission introduced greater than 47 kilos of lunar rock again to Earth. Some was fed to bugs, fish and different small creatures to see if it might kill them.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”