In honor of the fortieth anniversary of the Apollo Moon Landings this past week, here’s a great article from boing boing about how the 842 pounds of lunar rocks brought back to earth by Astronauts are a controlled substance by the US Government. From the article:
One way to obtain a moon rock is by purchasing a plaque that the US government sometimes gives to famous people and to politicians from other countries. They contain tiny slivers of moon rock. Some of these gifts have drifted into the collectors’ market.
A Florida man was arrested for trying to sell a “fingernail-sized moon rock, weighing barely more than a gram” for $5 million. The rock was originally given to the Honduran government in 1973 by then-President Richard Nixon.
I can understand wanting to control such a rare commodity for scientific research and other noble reasons, I’m not sure how I feel about giving it away, but still trying to control it after the fact. On the other hand, it’s pretty hilarious what people will create black markets for. It looks like pretty much anything they are told they cannot have.
Lunar rocks are a controlled substance [boingboing.net]