Who Owns Moon Rock?
Apollo Moon Rocks are NASA and US government property which cannot be sold or exchanged to private citizens. Lunar meteorites are “Moon Rocks” just the same as the Apollo samples, except for one major detail : lunar meteorites were delivered to Earth by Mother Nature, and not astronauts who are government employees.
Were Moon rocks stolen?
Theft of NASA rocks In June 2002, 101 grams of Moon rocks were stolen from the Johnson Space Center by interns Thad Roberts and Tiffany Fowler. The pair used knowledge of the security around the rocks gained during their internship to remove a 272 kg (600 lb) safe in building 31 North containing the samples.
What happened to Moon rocks?
The main repository for the Apollo Moon rocks is the Lunar Sample Laboratory Facility at the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. For safekeeping, there is also a smaller collection stored at White Sands Test Facility in Las Cruces, New Mexico.
Are any Moon rocks privately owned?
29 to yet another private collector. Although NASA’s lunar missions returned more than 842 pounds of moon rock to Earth, it is illegal for private citizens to own any of it (lunar meteorites, however, are perfectly legal).