Courts

NASA Sues Former Apollo 14 Astronaut over Lunar Camera

Submitted by Elaine Magliaro, Guest Blogger

Edgar Dean Mitchell, a lunar module pilot and the sixth person to walk on the surface of the Moon, is being sued by NASA. NASA wants Mitchell to return a camera that went to the Moon on the Apollo 14 mission. A lawsuit filed by the federal government on Thursday in a South Florida federal court claims that the former astronaut tried to sell the camera in an auction.

NASA, reportedly, learned in March that a British auction house “was planning to sell the camera at an upcoming Space History Sale” in May. According to a Boston Globe article, government lawyers contend that Mitchell “is exercising improper dominion and control over a NASA Data Acquisition Camera.’’  The lawyers “are asking US District Judge Daniel T.K. Hurley to order Mitchell to return the camera immediately.”

The lawsuit says that the camera had a pre-sale estimate of $60,000 to $80,000—and that “all equipment and property used during NASA operations remains the property of NASA unless explicitly released or transferred to another party.”

Mitchell, who is eighty, said, “It’s utter nonsense.” He added that during “the moon mission era” he and other astronauts had gotten permission to take mementos from the space craft. “We have dozens of pieces. All of us who flew to the moon.”

In addition to requesting that the judge declare the camera property of the US government, the lawsuit asks that Mitchell be required “to pay all legal and court fees arising from the case.”

NASA Biographical data on Edgar Dean Mitchell

SOURCES

US sues astronaut for camera’s return (Boston Globe)

NASA sues ex-astronaut Edgar Mitchell seeking return of camera that went to moon on Apollo 14 (Washington Post/AP)

Ex-astronaut tries to sell camera from moon trip: It’s a developing story — NASA sues to get it back after seeing it up for auction (MSNBC/Reuters)

NASA sues ex-astronaut over camera that went to moon: Lawsuit contends Edgar Mitchell tried to sell camera at auction (Orlando Sentinel/AP)

119 thoughts on “NASA Sues Former Apollo 14 Astronaut over Lunar Camera”

  1. Arthur,

    Some questions to consider: Where did NASA think the camera was these past forty years? Had the agency checked to see if it had been returned after the Apollo 14 mission? If not, why not?

  3. NASA had some common sense when they said it was OK for some small mementos to be taken. I hardly think that they envisioned the guys taking $60,000 cameras. Nor do I think that they would have said taking the stabilzed attitude indicator worth a couple of hundred thousand was a legitimate memento. The stick on the controller is an appropriate memento, but Mitchell pushed this too far.

  4. Elaine, Kderosa is a blight to every thread he touches and hijacks. If you take his bait, you’ll get cooties.

    blight   /blaɪt/ Show Spelled
    [blahyt] Show IPA

    –noun
    1. Plant Pathology .
    a. the rapid and extensive discoloration, wilting, and death of plant tissues.
    b. a disease so characterized.
    2. any cause of impairment, destruction, ruin, or frustration: Extravagance was the blight of the family.
    3. the state or result of being blighted or deteriorated; dilapidation; decay: urban blight.

  5. kderosa,

    Care to comment on the subject of this post? Do you think NASA was right or wrong to bring suit against Edgar Mitchell?

    You can carry on the discussion about fascists in your own mind. I couldn’t care less.

  10. Elaine, thanks for the additional article. It raises questions.

    The article states: “he and others were ordered to return anything they got in connection with their NASA duties. He recalled that he was forced to return a dagger and his wife to hand over a bracelet they received as gifts in Morocco when he and other astronauts took part in a worldwide goodwill tour.”

    That’s interesting, I wonder if the had to send it back to Morocco or if the government considered it a gift to the United States and they had to turn it in to some agent of our government. I know all gifts presented to our President, those ceremonial gestures of friendship and respect, are actually gifts to the United States and not the office-holder. I guess all of that stuff and the camera they will hound Mitchell for all gets taken to that big warehouse, the one where they keep true Ark, preserved bodies of the Roswell aliens, Kennedy’s brain…

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6-rQ6Jay6w

  14. kderosa,

    I’m not in the habit of throwing around words like fascist, communist, Marxist. I’ll leave that to folks like you and some of the FOX News personalities and radio shock jocks.

    I get information from the sources I use. I write about what I’ve learned from those sources. None of the sources for this story mentioned anything about Obama or fascism.

    P.S. Happy Fourth of July!

  15. I’m sure if this suit were brought during the Bush administration, you’d being saying “the fascist Bush government.” Now that the Obama administration is perpetrating this goofy suit, it’s simply “our government” with no mention of Obama.

    Stay classy, Elaine.

  17. Lotta,

    I just found the following article:

    Uncle Sam sues suburban Lake Worth astronaut for return of space camera
    By Jane Musgrave Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
    http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/uncle-sam-sues-suburban-lake-worth-astronaut-for-1573577.html

    Excerpt:
    During the moon mission era, he said he and other astronauts got permission to take mementoes from the space crafts. “We have dozens of pieces. All of us who flew to the moon,” he said.

    Had they not brought them back, they would have been destroyed, he said. After astronauts climbed back into the command module for the roughly 250,000-mile trip home, engineers in Houston blew up the lunar module, he said.

    “It was government throwaways, government junk,” he said of the various items he salvaged. His most prized possession is a hand controller from the Apollo 14 spacecraft.

    “They were going to throw it away on the lunar surface, so why not?” he asked.

    Apollo 12 astronaut Alan Bean, who was also a commander of Skylab 3 in 1973, said the rules changed, perhaps after Mitchell retired in 1972.

    At some point, he estimated about 35 years ago, he and others were ordered to return anything they got in connection with their NASA duties. He recalled that he was forced to return a dagger and his wife to hand over a bracelet they received as gifts in Morocco when he and other astronauts took part in a worldwide goodwill tour.

    “I gave all of my stuff back,” he said. “I didn’t have anything as good as a camera.”

    The two cameras he and astronaut Pete Conrad took to the moon in 1969 stayed there, he said. “They’re probably still up there,” he said from Houston where he works as a painter, billing himself as “the only artist to walk on the moon.”

    Mitchell, he said, shouldn’t be faulted. Others, he said, probably didn’t return their space goodies.

    “Be kind to Ed,” he said. “These things, back in those days, it wasn’t important. We were trying to get to the moon and get back alive. The other stuff, it wasn’t important.”

    It seems unlikely the federal government is going to heed that advice.

  19. From the Boston Globe link:

    “It’s utter nonsense,’’ he said.

    During the moon mission era, he said, he and other astronauts got permission to take mementos from the space crafts. “We have dozens of pieces. All of us who flew to the moon,’’ he said. …

    Had they not brought them back, they would have been destroyed, said Mitchell, 80. After astronauts returned safely, engineers in Houston blew up the lunar module, he said.”
    ———

    If it’s true that keeping souvenirs was a past practice then for the government to go after Mitchell at this late date is no more than petty. Gee, aren’t there some war criminals or felonious bankers for government lawyers to go after, are they that hard-up for real work?

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