Apollo 14 astronaut Ed Mitchell sued by U.S. Government

[Star Voyager]

Astronaut Ed Mitchell, the 6th man to walk on the Moon, is being sued by the U.S. government for trying to sell one of the cameras he had up there.

http://news.yahoo.com/government-sues-apollo-14-astronaut-over-lunar-camera-204401390.html

 

[FADEC]

Actually this isn't much of a surprise. With all due respect for his job on the Apollo 14 mission, but Mitchell either really needs money or he is just completely baffled. I mean, not just someone but a former Apollo astronaut who claims that the US government keeps its contacts to aliens secret, or that the Roswell UFO crash was real can't be taken seriously.

I really hope he just needs money. And obviously this seems to be the case indeed.

 

[ky]

He's one of the two astronauts that I know personaly.The other one is Thomas Stafford.Funny how both have been on Apollo missions.

 

[Star Voyager]

More from Florida Today:

http://www.floridatoday.com/article...ver-moon-camera?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|Home

 

[ky]

He lives in the same county that I live in.More from the Palm Beach Post: http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/uncle-sam-sues-suburban-lake-worth-astronaut-for-1573577.html

 

[C3PO]

IMHO the person(s) that decided to file the lawsuit should be strapped into the next Dragon. This is petty in the extreme. I know they will probably win, but come on, step back and look at the big picture.

 

[HAL9001]

this is just so stupid...

 

[FADEC]

IMHO the person(s) that decided to file the lawsuit should be strapped into the next Dragon. This is petty in the extreme.

IMHO it is not okay to sell such historic remains at pleasure, especially if they were not officially transfered. Sorry with all due respect for Mitchell being a former Apollo guy, but this just has to be won by NASA if you ask me.

 

[Ross]

I think NASA needs to take a chill pill.

 

[C3PO]

IMHO it is not okay to sell such historic remains at pleasure, especially if they were not officially transfered. Sorry with all due respect for Mitchell being a former Apollo guy, but this just has to be won by NASA if you ask me.

If NASA wants it's camera back, they should, and will, get it back. But if it was up to me, the person(s) that decided that it's worth going to court over this would be fired on the spot. Just because they can do it doesn't mean it's the right thing to do.

If the official transfer paperwork is the problem, then get it sorted out. It's not like NASA needs the camera for an upcoming mission. The amount of money it will fetch isn't going to make any difference to NASA's budget. This is just right-fighting. "Everyone will loose, but I was right ."

 

[dougkeenan]

Shouldn't a psychic have seen this coming?

 

[Ghostrider]

When was the camera given to him? 40 years ago or something? Even if he had stolen it, and it doesn't seem to be the case, 40 years is well beyond prescription for far more serious crimes. The lawsuit alone is going to be far more than the value of the item itself.

 

[Urwumpe]

I would say he should leave the psychic stuff to the cephalopods.

 

[FADEC]

If the official transfer paperwork is the problem, then get it sorted out.

Then you need a time machine

The problem is that the responsible persons are either retired or dead already. We have to remember that the Apollo era was quite hectic days at NASA. That camera is not the only thing that is/was missing and nobody really asked because everybody thinks it is anywhere as an exhibit or it naps in any archive until somebody needs it or it just appears. So it is likely that Mitchell just took the advantage and just took the camera. I wonder how many people at NASA did this. But it's still not ok.

This is just right-fighting. "Everyone will loose, but I was right ."

I'm not sure. If NASA kindly asks, you think he would just give it back? I don't think so. He really talks nonsense about NASA (and the government and military as well) when he talks about his UFO stuff.

Be it just a camera, but he actually was going to auction property of the US government I think. What should they do? Just watch it because his name is Egdar Mitchell?

---------- Post added at 02:16 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:06 PM ----------

When was the camera given to him? 40 years ago or something? Even if he had stolen it, and it doesn't seem to be the case, 40 years is well beyond prescription for far more serious crimes.

I think in case it still is property of the government, and if it never was transfered, he still has to give it back. But I might be wrong. I don't know the corresponding laws. To me it just seems that what he is doing is not ok.

 

[C3PO]

Be it just a camera, but he actually was going to auction property of the US government I think. What should they do? Just watch it because his name is Egdar Mitchell?

IMHO they should just let it go, and try to find some real problems to solve.
My point is that NASA has nothing to gain from getting that camera back. I don't think former Apollo astronauts nicking stuff, and putting it on eBay, is going to be a major problem. If it does, then NASA should step in.

The people involved are payed to look after NASA's interests, and if they think this is the way to do it, they're not worth their paycheck. And the fact that he talks about NASA just makes it even more petty.

If you can produce documentation that NASA indeed owns the camera, you certainly can find a way to officially transfer the ownership.

Remember people, big picture.

 

[ky]

The lunar module would be destroyed after it undocked from the command module going back to Earth,so he took the camera and a control stick from it.After he returned to Earth,he says NASA allowed the astronauts to keep anything that was small enough to fit in the command module.So technically NASA did allow astronauts to take things like that for themselves.NASA ended doing that after the Apollo program.So that issue does not have anything to do with the NASA management of today, but the NASA management of the past.

 

[FADEC]

My point is that NASA has nothing to gain from getting that camera back.

But they can prevent that it is thrown around the world until it disappears in any unknown basement. IMHO such kind of historic hardware belongs behind glass in museums or in archives. If it would be just one of hundreds of cameras used during the Shuttle era, it would be different though. But this thing was on the Moon, and flying to the Moon still is a unique historic event for 4 decades (and likely many more decades to come).

Of course NASA also is to blame for taking not the best care. But the responsible persons are gone.

 

[Ghostrider]

But they can prevent that it is thrown around the world until it disappears in any unknown basement.

In that case, they should have thought of it beforehand. And since Mitchell happens to be a human being who has been to the frickin' Moon, they should treat him better than the camera, which is just hardware.

 

[FADEC]

By the way: Mitchell admitted that in the past he was asked by NASA to give it back several times.

 

[C3PO]

But they can prevent that it is thrown around the world until it disappears in any unknown basement.

NASA did such a good job on the video tape from the Apollo 11 landing. :facepalm:

Mitchell cared enough about it to prevent it from being reentered in the LM. NASA didn't.
I bet there are a lot of flown artifacts from the era stuffed away in basements and drawers of former NASA employees. Why does this camera deserve to be in a museum anymore then that stuff? And if it fetches the expected amount of $, the chance of it ending up in the basement is fairly slim. Very few people would buy such an item just to hide it away somewhere. It's even a good chance the camera would be on public display after it was sold.

I just think the decision to sue this long after the mission is so monumentally wrong. If NASA really wanted it in a museum, they should have done so long ago. I suspect that it has more to do with Mitchell's recent statements then a wish to preserve the camera for public display.

I hope he sends NASA a bill for 40 years of storage.