Who owns the Moon Rock?

Quote: Wikipedia

Although Luna landers scattered pennants of the Soviet Union on the Moon, and U.S. flags were symbolically planted at their landing sites by the Apollo astronauts, no nation currently claims ownership of any part of the Moon's surface.[157] Russia and the U.S. are party to the 1967 Outer Space Treaty,[158] which defines the Moon and all outer space as the "province of all mankind".[157] This treaty also restricts the use of the Moon to peaceful purposes, explicitly banning military installations and weapons of mass destruction.[159] The 1979 Moon Agreement was created to restrict the exploitation of the Moon's resources by any single nation, but it has not been signed by any of the space-faring nations.[160] While several individuals have made claims to the Moon in whole or in part, none of these are considered credible.

Quote: Ayecarumba

Recently, a 74 year old grandma was busted for attempting to sell a speck of moon rock that Neil Armstrong gave to her deceased husband. The NASA goons, backed up by a SWAT team with guns at the ready, took the old lady down, claiming that the moon rock (actually smaller than a grain of rice) was stolen U.S. Government property.


I could read this as the Grandma can have her piece of the Moon, and do with it what she wants. It doesn't belong to the U.S. government, it belongs to "all of mankind". What do you say?

How can they put in an honest days work if they don't goon SOMEBODY? There's nothing else for them to do.

Quote: heather

If the US doesn't own it, what's up with having planted the flag? I kinda thought that such a gesture was intended to communicate "I claim this satellite in the name of the United States" and would expect even the least-informed observer to come to a similar conclusion.

Quote: algle

If planting a flag does constitute a claim of ownership, then I think you'll find the former Soviet Union has first rights. They crash-landed a Soviet pennant on the moon well before anyone stood on the moon. Now that's a good hedge bet!

Quote: algle

If planting a flag does constitute a claim of ownership, then I think you'll find the former Soviet Union has first rights. They crash-landed a Soviet pennant on the moon well before anyone stood on the moon. Now that's a good hedge bet!

Quote: Wizard

Really?! I didn't know that. Didn't they do the same thing recently, planting a flag on the ocean floor below the north pole?

Quote:

Luna-2

The first spacecraft to impact the Moon, in 1959. It carried two spheres (7.5 and 12 cm in diameter) filled with liquid and an explosive charge, designed to burst apart on impact and scatter pentagonal pennants. The messages are Sentiabr' 1959 (September 1959), SSSR, Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics). The icon of the wreath of grain around the hammer and sickle is the state seal of the USSR.

Luna-2 and its pennants were actually probably vaporized. They struck the Moon at a relative velocity of 3.3 kilometers per second. Assuming kinetic energy is converted to heat, and given the specific heat of steel, the resulting temperature obtained is 11000° K.