NASA and Apollo Astronaut Camera Lawsuit is a Go

Page 3 - Seeking answers? Join the Tom's Guide community: where nearly two million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.
Status
Not open for further replies.
No, bringing the camera back could not have doomed the mission. They were planning to bring back samples. They can adjuste trajectory to account for varying weight because they weight of samples brought back isn't exact and isn't known in advance. Sure, they have a general idea, but that's all. Keep in mind this equipment came back on the lunar all the way to earth. It was accounted for in any fuel burns until they jettisoned the LM and SM for reentry.
 
Its seems to me like the garbage rule. Once you take your garbage out to the street to be picked up it becomes public property and anyone can go thru it and take whatever they want. So just because its the moon and it was intended to become garbage and someone takes it out of the garbage pile doesn't that become theirs? COME ON use some real sense here what NASA said was garbage was this mans treasure it his, let be done with it.
 
Buy the camera from him..........
dat dude went to moon, man if i'am obama i'd give him a cash cheque. he gave lot of for lazy ass businessmen..
 
I'm sure NASA doesn't care if astronauts keep souvenirs. I bet they all do it. And if he wants to pass it down to his grand kids, they're probably fine with that too. But bringing back government equipment to auction off to the highest bidder? That's a dangerous precedent if NASA lets it go unchallenged. NASA is just sending a message to all the astronauts in a position to grab some swag from the space program: as long as you keep quiet about it, we'll look the other way.
 
Is the American Taxpayer paying for this lawsuit?
If so, what is the estimated cost of the lawyers?
How much did the astronaut think he would get from the auction?
Is all this worth pursuing from a taxpayer's perspective?
Why can't NASA just ask for 50% of the proceeds and be done with it?
 
Other astronauts tried to take items like coins and stamps with them in order to profit from their sale. They were forced to give those up, and were in fact disciplined for violating NASA policy at the time, so there is some precedent here for NASA to stand on. I can see the tax dollar argument as well - it was public money, and Mitchell really shouldn't profit from selling it. Nonetheless, this is a PR disaster for NASA when they just can't afford one. They are going to look like creeps no matter how this suit turns out. Best thing to do would be to auction the camera, give Mitchell a "finder's fee" for his trouble, and split the proceeds between NASA and a charity of Mitchell's choice.
 
Thing is Apollo didn't really cost the tax payer anything. Sure it cost billions of dollars but that was all clawed back though the thousands of jobs, dozens and dozens of businesses, patents and other developments it created. By the end of it I bet it actually made money.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.