New Delhi: The National Aeronautics and Space Administration has claimed the dust and cockroaches brought from the Moon, saying that no one else has any right to auction them. The space agency has asked Boston-based RR Auctions to ban the sale of moon dust collected during the 1969 Apollo 11 mission that was fed to some cockroaches to find out whether moon rocks contain any kind of pathogen that threatens terrestrial life?
A NASA lawyer has said in a letter to the auctioneer that this dust and cockroaches still belong to the federal government. RR said the materials used in the experiment, including about 40 milligrams of moon dust and three skeletons of cockroaches, were expected to sell for at least $400,000, but have been removed from the list of items to be auctioned.
During the Apollo 11 mission, more than 21.3 kg of lunar rock from the Moon was brought to Earth and fed to insects, fish, and some other organisms to find out whether it would kill them. The cockroaches that were fed moon dust were brought to the University of Minnesota, where entomologist Marion Brooks said after studying them, ‘I found no evidence of an infectious agent being present.’
