All About Moon Rocks & NASA

In honor of Moon News, some tidbits from 1990s Usenet:


All About Moon Rocks & NASA

Newsfroups: alt.sci.physics.new-theories,alt.fan.beable,alt.religion.kibology
Subject: Re: NASA wastes more money
Organization: Obvious Trolls, Inc. Etc.
X-Newsreader: trn 4.0-test67 (15 July 1998)
From: Caj@B_r_a_i_n_H_z.c_o_m (Xcott Craver)
Glenn Knickerbocker wrote:
:Beable van Polasm wrote:
: : to the moon and paint some rocks purple or whatever color moon rocks
:SILLY! Everybody knows moon rocks are GREY, because we didn't have
:color televisions back then!
NO! Moon rocks are grey because of the lack of air.
Don't you know bluebirds turn grey in a vacuum? Same reason: light is actually a wave, like sound, and you can't have sound in space. They sky would be grey too if it wasn't for air to reflect the ocean, which is itself blue because of algae (water is normally transparent.)
-S
----
From: Carlos "Froggy" May (froggy@neosoft.killallspammers.com)
Subject: Why won't the Moon leave me alone??
Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology
X-Frog: Yes
Organization: Planet Of The Frogs
Leader Kibo said:
: The Moon could double as a loofah.
A loofah that is marketed for almost $5million a gram.
According to the AP via Yahoo News:

: Lowly moon rock at center of court fight MIAMI - In a cross between science fiction and a children's tale, a moon rock gets dug up from its peaceful valley, flies aboard Apollo 17 to Earth, visits Honduras and winds up in a U.S. court."

That was my favorite Theodore Sturgeon Geisel story ever!

: "It's one of these curious little cases," said Keith Rosenn, a University of Miami law professor recruited by the judge as a consultant on Honduran law. "But it is a real case with grown men arguing about it."

Though it's being ignored by grown women.
And by men affected with dwarfism.

: The extensively traveled bit of cosmic geology couldn't care less where it ends up,

By cracky, this new generation of young punk moonrocks, they just don't give a damn!
Fight moonrock apathy!

: but Justice Department lawyers and a Florida man who claims it are fighting for possession.Technically, the encased, fingertip-sized rock is listed as the defendant in the case of "United States v. Lucite ball containing lunar material."

Worst episode of Celebrity Deathmatch EVER!

: For now, it is a prisoner, waiting to learn its fate

Although it doesn't care

: from a federal judge busy with a fight over congressional redistricting.Anxiously watching from the sidelines are space buffs who have developed a high-end market for anything that's flown in space. Pieces of the moon are particularly prized. Think Van Gogh.

Van Gogh loved to buy moonrocks.

: This 1.142-gram chunk could be worth millions on the open market. The last man to have it was asking dlrs 5 million."Many space collectors consider it the ultimate collectible to have a piece of the moon," said Florian Noller, a German authority on space memorabilia who has legally sold moon dust.

It's legal to sell moon dust in Amsterdam.
Dude, if you think 5 million dlrs is too much for a rock of moon, you must never have tried it, man! That's some primo stuff.
And the best part is, if the cops catch you with moon rock, they don't arrest you, they arrest the rock!
And the rock doesn't even care!

: "That's something very symbolic or very cool to have." [...]

Now let's see...
Cost of Apollo program: $25.4 billion
Amount of moon material brought back by Apollo program: 381.7 kg
25,400,000,000 / 381,700
Works out to about $60,540 spent per gram of moon brought back, no?
(my calculator doesn't have that many digits)
Going rate for Apollo moon rock on open market: almost $5million per gram
So NASA is sitting on a stockpile of moon with an estimated street value of about $19085 Billion!

Explain to me again why the taxpayers need to support the space program, rather than the other way around?
Wondering simply, -- Froggy