Controversy around the

If the US Government threw the camera on the moon, an astronaut, who was unfortunately cheap, picked it up and brought it back to the earth, could he have owned it and sold it?

That is the question that the US Government is asking the federal court to give a definitive answer in the " confronting US Edgar Mitchell " lawsuit. According to a recent lawsuit filed by the court in Miami, the plaintiff, Washington, wanted the court to deprive the defendant Edgar Mitchell, the country's sixth astronaut, on the moon - for the camera. was used in the Apollo 14 mission in 1971, and claimed it was US owned, according to Reuters.

After returning to Earth, Mitchell kept the camera for the past four decades, before wanting to auction the item in New York for an estimated $ 60,000 - $ 80,000. However, the auction was canceled because NASA decided to sue in court in an attempt to recall it.

Garbage into a quarter

Need to repeat the origin of this camcorder. At 15x10x5 cm, the data acquisition device ( DAC ) was one of only two cameras on the cabin of the Apollo 14 spacecraft's Antares when it landed on the lunar surface on June 5, 1971. The function of recording technical data, terrain and moon surface images, DAC is located inside Antares, pointing out the window towards the astronaut Mitchell moving. It returned to the last 5 minutes when Antares's chamber touched the moon's Fra Mauro plateau surface.

After more than 33 hours on the moon, with two walks and a few other experimental movements, Shepard and Mitchell left Ms. Hang's face, at which point DAC was still on the compartment. As planned, the camera will be left with Antares to reduce the weight of the Kitty Hawk on the way back to earth. However, Mitchell decided to keep the DAC, along with other trifles, as a souvenir in his memorable journey, as he shared on WPTV.

Picture DAC turned Mr. Mitchell on the moon - Photo: Reuters

Souvenirs

Apollo 14 astronauts are not the only crew collecting mementos in the journey to the moon, but almost everyone. The astronauts on Apollo 12 and 15 tore off a backpack on the astronaut suit before throwing them down on the moon's surface. And the others keep the module joysticks, or the supporting cables . NASA doesn't pay much attention to having to bring these things to earth, but the plan is to bury them in the impact crater, created when the compartment Journey to the moon. When collecting mementos, astronauts often ask their boss at Johnson Space Center. And in Mitchell's case, he said that they had an agreement with NASA administrators that small objects that did not cause overload had the right to take them back.

NASA's history has recorded these problems, but in an informal way. In an interview in September 972, Donald "Deke" Slayton , head of NASA's astronaut division, said astronauts often recorded items they wanted to collect before each trip and gave them to him. Once reported, the astronauts would bring it back, according to the Tucson Daily Citizen.

However, until now, only Mr. Mitchell was the first to think about benefiting from these objects, while his other colleagues often lent to museums.