Tour of Duty
On a fateful day in 1969, a small, white bag filled with moonrocks made its way back to Earth in the possession of astronaut Neil Armstrong.
But the historical artifact traded hands many times over the decades before it was eventually sold at a recent Sotheby’s auction for $1.8 million, the New York Times reported.
NASA first loaned the moon souvenir to the Cosmosphere, a modest space museum in Kansas.
But when the museum’s operator resigned in 2002, the bag disappeared with him, only to be found in the disgraced employee’s garage one year later.
Although the bag should have been returned to NASA, the government sold it to an Illinois-based lawyer for a mere $955, only to renege on the sale after discovering the calamity of their mistake.
A lawsuit ensued, resulting in a win for the buyer and a big payout once she sold the American treasure at auction. And it wasn’t to NASA.
Instead, Sotheby held a special space-themed auction last week, with the bag selling for $1.8 million to an unnamed buyer. Many hope this buyer will now do the right thing, and return Armstrong’s bag to a museum.
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