New York state owns a piece of the moon, and it’s right here in the Capital District. But you won’t see it anytime soon.
In 1973, President Richard Nixon presented moon rocks recovered from the Apollo 17 mission to 134 countries, all 50 states and Puerto Rico as a sign of goodwill and humanity’s journey to the stars.
Nearly 36 years after being handed out, a majority of those moon rocks are unaccounted for, according to Joseph Gutheinz, a University of Phoenix Online professor and former senior special agent for NASA’s Office of Inspector General.
In 1998, Gutheinz was a part of Operation Lunar Eclipse to uncover a $5 million moon rock, smuggled into the United States from Honduras. Gutheinz eventually found the rock being sold on the black market in Miami, Fla. Since 2002, he has instructed the students in his criminal justice course to track down the other missing moon rocks using the skills involved in a criminal investigation. Students are directed to call state museums and state offices in their search.
Most of the moon rocks we find in the states are locked away in storage and long forgotten, said Gutheinz. His students have located moon rocks across the globe, and when they find one, they are asked to send in their findings to local newspapers.
Recently, a student in Missouri found that one of the New York moon rocks on the list of missing or unaccounted samples is actually at the New York State Museum in downtown Albany.
Lisa Moore, a criminal justice graduate student at the University of Phoenix Online, said she `struck gold,` or moon rock, when the second museum she called ` the New York State Museum ` ended her search for the lunar sample. She said the museum staff told her that the Apollo 17 moon rock was in the top security vault of the museum.
According to Gutheinz, after NASA gave away the samples in the ’70s, the agency had no way to track the gifts. Many of the moon rocks, internationally, have gone missing and have been sold for millions on the black market. `It’s not just a rock,` he said. `It’s the equivalent of a fine piece of art in value.`
Gutheinz said that what gives the moon rocks their value on the black market is their scarcity. He said the Honduran moon rock that was found in Florida was originally offered to Gutheinz for $5 million after he took out an ad in USA Today to lure potential sellers who illegally owned the samples. He said he suspects the price tag has increased since 1998.`If anything, the moon rocks are more valuable today on the black market,` he said.
`Until recently, no one has really tried to identify where these rocks have gone over the years,` said Rob Pearlman, the owner of collectspace.com, a site that archives space artifacts, including information on the whereabouts of the Apollo 11 and Apollo 17 Goodwill moon rocks.
Many of the rocks that have been found by Gutheinz’s classes are posted on Pearlman’s Web site. Of the Apollo 17 moon rocks given to the 50 states, only 16 are accounted for, according to Pearlman, who added that many are in private collections, away from public view.
`It’s one of the difficulties of the project,` said Pearlman. `Even harder is tracking down the 134 moon rocks which were gifted to other countries.`
Gutheinz said that one of the reasons many of the samples have been lost is the instability of governments in developing countries.
`I am disturbed that many of these countries took these precious gifts and sold them,` he said. `Too many of these people we gave the gifts to were dictators and thugs.`
Gutheinz gave as an example Romania, where the moon rock was sold with the executed dictator’s estate.
While the moon rock, or possibly rocks, in New York may not be lost in shifting dictatorships, they are still an item that requires a great deal of protection.
New York’s Apollo 17 Goodwill moon rock, which had been on display at the New York State Museum, was taken from view five years ago when the country of Malta’s moon rocks were stolen, according to Michael Hawkins, geology collections manager at the museum.
`It had a value of $5 million, so we had it locked up with the other high-risk pieces,` said Hawkins. `It would be onerous to put a security guard on it at all times.`
Hawkins said that something that is extremely valuable should be kept extremely safe, and the moon rock would not be put on display unless it was under the protection of guards.
Hawkins did not rule out the possibility of showing the moon rock again at the museum ` at special events or in exhibits ` but said for the time being, the sample would remain under lock and key.
`We have had it on display in the past, and we will have it on display in the future, but right now I cannot say when,` said Hawkins.
Even getting a photo of the moon rocks is apparently a security risk, according to museum officials who stated that multiple members of the museum’s administration and state police must be at the opening of the high-security vault because of the rock and other valuable items contained within. As of Nov. 30, the New York State Museum staff retracted the previous comment about the security involved in opening the vault, stating that the information was not accurate and that the museum would not be able to divulge that information for security purposes. The only information that they could make available was that there are multiple safeguards in place and that it is in a safe location.
Gutheinz and Pearlman believe that the moon rocks New York owns should be on display for the citizens. Gutheinz said he understands the need for security but believes keeping the moon rocks out of sight cheats `the children of New York` from seeing something brought back from space.
Pearlman said that these gifts to the states are owned by the state while other, larger samples, like those at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, are only on loan from NASA. `Ideally, I’d love to see it on display,` said Pearlman. `I feel that was the intent of the gifts.`
Altogether, NASA has brought back over 842 pounds of moon rocks from missions to the moon. “