The US sold the wrong sample bag from the Moon

A bag used by astronauts during the Apollo 11 mission, the first manned flight to the Moon, is at the center of a legal dispute.

According to Tech Times, the bag was carried by the crew to the Apollo 11 spacecraft when they flew to the Moon in June 1969, used to collect the first specimen from this celestial body. However, the bag sparked a legal battle after the US government sold it by mistake.

The bag was collected during a crime investigation by former director of the Kansas City Space and Space Museum, Max Ary.

The Apollo 11 mission is the first manned flight to the Moon.(Photo: NASA).

The museum discovered unusual features in an internal inventory in 2003. Investigation showed that some items were removed from the museum's collection and sold. The museum management decided to sue Ary.

Ary was tried and charged in November 2005 for stealing and reselling museum exhibits. Prosecutors accused Ary of making about $ 180,000 by selling valuables, including an astronaut's T-shirt, an Apollo 12 jet-powered jet engine and a dashboard. rocket.

In the first instance trial, investigators found hundreds more important memorabilia in the lost space field, some were lent by the US Aerospace Agency (NASA). One of those objects was a bag containing the Moon container found in a box stored in Ary's garage.

In 2015, the bag was mistakenly sold to Nancy Carlson, a resident of Illinois, during a government auction. Carlson bought the bag for $ 995 and transferred it to NASA's Johnson Space Center for evaluation.

Due to not being informed about the auction and the sale of the bag, NASA retained the item. Later, Carlson filed a lawsuit against NASA in a state court in June this year, demanding that the bag be returned.

The prosecutor wants the judge to hear Ary's case abolish the sale and refund the amount Carlson paid for the bag. According to the authorities, the mistake occurred due to errors in the writing. Two bags of different Moon specimens , including the bag on Apollo 11, were marked with the same number.