Moon Dust to Be Auctioned

choi

(1) Artefact from Apollo 11 to Appear at Auction. Sotheby's, April 2017 (month and year from the URL)
http://www.sothebys.com/en/news- ... ear-at-auction.html
("The true history of the bag went unknown for decades until just a year ago. It was offered three separate times in 2014 by a small auction house on behalf of the US Marshall’s service, garnering not a single bid. It was relisted again in 2015, where the current owner won the lot with a bid of $995")

My comment: There is no need to read the rest.

(2) Kelly Crow, Nancy Lee Carlson Bought a Piece of the Moon -- NASA Really wants It Back; Bag containing lunar dust scooped up by Neil Armstrong was forgotten for decades; Potentially worth millions. Wall Street Journal, May 20, 2017.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/nan ... -it-back-1495206493

the first 6 paragraphs:

"When Nancy Lee Carlson discovered an online auction two years ago for moon dust, she couldn’t believe her luck. A geology buff, she spent childhood summers scouring for rocks along Michigan's Lake Superior, but wasn't a serious collector. She figured the dust was genuine because it was being auctioned on behalf of the US Marshals Service.

" 'Ooh boy, that's something I'd love to have,' she recalls thinking, remembering the astronauts and spacewalks she watched growing up. The 62-year-old hadn't bid on anything as high as its estimate -- $995 -- but the white, zippered pouch containing the moon dust was bundled with a launch key for the Soviet spacecraft Soyuz T-14 and a headrest from an Apollo command module. She decided the pieces 'had a story I could figure out,' so she clicked once and won.

"After months of sleuthing that led to a legal showdown with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, she indeed figured it out: The Us government mistakenly sold her some of the first moon dust it had ever collected.

"After Apollo 11 astronaut Neil Armstrong took 'one giant leap for mankind' and stepped on the moon in 1969, one of the first things he did was unzip a bag and fill it with roughly five scoops of dust and rocks. He shoved the bag into a pocket of his spacesuit and turned it over to a Houston lab. It disappeared and was eventually forgotten, even by NASA.

"When Ms Carlson sent her bag to NASA for testing, scientists realized what she had bought and refused to give it back. So last December she sued the agency and won. Mow. she's planning to resell it for at least $2 million in Sotheby's first space=exploration sale in New York on
July 20.

"Sotheby's senior specialist Cassandra Hatton said she thinks the object could sell for million more because doesn't allow individuals to own any bits of the moon, apart from this court-ordered exception. 'This is my Mona Lisa moment,' Ms Hatton said.

My comment: There is no need to read the rest. I do not know what "Mona Lisa moment" means and fail to find it out.