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[JayUtah]

http://space.io9.com/win-these-bids-and-build-your-own-historic-spacecraft-498636475

[Echnaton]

All very cool some of it is art.  I particularly like the Soyuz thruster engine.  I wonder if Citibank will up my limit?

[Tedward]

For some reason I have a need to get something from the era of Mercury through to Apollo from either side. It is something I would cherish and not flog off for a small profit.

Have to get it past the gaffer first and she has the purse strings......

Not sure I ever will though, I have never bought anything off ebay let alone something like this whose provenance I would not know how to check.


Edit. Not even checked any prices if there were any.

[Obviousman]

I'm single with no-one to inherit.... the debt. I bought a replica A7L; why not this? To quote Wilma and Betty from the Flintstones....

"CHARRRRRRRGE IT!"

[Obviousman]

Hang on... "A buyers premium of 20% will be added to all winning bids..." Whaaat?

This is remarkably like buying things in the US retail market:

Me: "How much is that?"
Them: "$10."
Me: "I'll take it."
Them: "That'll be $10.59."
Me: ?
(local / state / Federal tax)

[Hal]

Hang on... "A buyers premium of 20% will be added to all winning bids..." Whaaat?

This is remarkably like buying things in the US retail market:

Me: "How much is that?"
Them: "$10."
Me: "I'll take it."
Them: "That'll be $10.59."
Me: ?
(local / state / Federal tax)

There's no federal sales tax in the U.S., but there's not many places (that I'm aware of) where the state and local tax would only be 5.9%!


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[ka9q]

Considering the distressing level of cannibalism I see in museum hardware, I really wish they'd have first crack at these artifacts. It doesn't seem right that a non-profit museum that benefits the public should have to bid alongside private collectors for hardware bought by the taxpayers. For example, the Apollo 9 CM here in San Diego is missing all its DSKYs -- but here they're available on the market. Hmm.

I understand that the Russians are hard up for cash so they'll sell anything these days, including tickets for Soyuz seats, but how does flown NASA hardware legally make it to the private market?

[JayUtah]

For example, the Apollo 9 CM here in San Diego is missing all its DSKYs...

When did that happen?  I was inside that CM when it was in Dearborn, and the control panels and LEB were intact, although the guidance platform behind the LEB had been removed for separate display elsewhere.

...but here they're available on the market. Hmm.-

My old boss has a spare DSKY from Apollo 14 in his office.  He retired long ago, so I need to hit him up to see what happened to it.  I'd like to see if he'd bequeath it to me, whereupon I would put it on permanent display at Clark Planetarium here in Salt Lake City.  In his case he merits one, because he worked on Apollo 14 and was one of the engineers they dragged out of bed to help solve the docking problem.

but how does flown NASA hardware legally make it to the private market?

Indeed.  Technically flown hardware is still government property and must be disposed of through proper methods to avoid insider profiteering.  Unflown hardware that was never transferred to government ownership is the property of its original contractors and can be disposed of in a different way.

I own flown SRB hardware.  But it has been officially discarded by the government; they're SRB components that are not reused and are supposed to be replaced with new components during refurbishment.  So those parts, when removed during refurbishment by Thiokol, revert to Thiokol's ownership.  Since the parts I have are made of Inconel, they are almost all recycled metallurgically.  But a few are retained to be given away as "flown hardware" souvenirs to Thiokol preferiti.

[Inanimate Carbon Rod]

http://space.io9.com/win-these-bids-and-build-your-own-historic-spacecraft-498636475

If I had the money, I'd make a few bids, but I'm going to limit myself to the occasional Apollo / Gemini astronaut signature from http://autographica.co.uk. Last year Buzz, Ed Mitchell, Dick Gordon and Charlie Duke were there, but I could only afford the signature of Dick. This year, I'll get Gene Cernan's signature, as I want a moon walker's signature.

[ka9q]

For example, the Apollo 9 CM here in San Diego is missing all its DSKYs...

When did that happen?  I was inside that CM when it was in Dearborn, and the control panels and LEB were intact, although the guidance platform behind the LEB had been removed for separate display elsewhere.

I don't know. I don't actually visit that museum very often, and I remember noticing the missing DSKYs when I attended the 40th anniversary celebration of Apollo 8 in December 2008 and they were still missing at the 40th anniversary of Apollo 17 this past December. (Seemed like such a short interval too...)

I don't remember what else had also been cannibalized but I'm pretty sure about the DSKYs.

Who else lives near a museum with an Apollo CM who can check for cannibalized hardware? I've seen several other CMs in museums but I can't remember their condition. I know the Smithsonian A&S museum has two flown CMs (Apollo 11 and Skylab 4) but only the Apollo 11 CM is easily inspected by the public. I'd hope that one of the most important artifacts in space history is kept in better shape.

[Glom]

I wouldn't trust myself to maintain this stuff.

My Star Trek 3D chess set is looking a little tarnished after all these years.

[ka9q]

When did that happen?  I was inside that CM when it was in Dearborn, and the control panels and LEB were intact, although the guidance platform behind the LEB had been removed for separate display elsewhere.

When was it in Dearborn? Michigan?

I have pictures, would you like to see them?

I think you said it was on loan from the Smithsonian. Does NASA routinely give them title to flown hardware? Makes sense to me.

Private ownership of flown NASA artifacts seems very wrong on two counts. It seems wrong to pay an individual big bucks for something whose value derives entirely from having been flown in space at public expense, and it seems wrong to sit on a piece of space history that ought to be visible to the public that paid for it.

If people want to own and speculate on items that have been in space, nothing stops them from organizing (and paying for) private commercial space flights to put them there and bring them back.

[JayUtah]

When was it in Dearborn? Michigan?

I believe up until the late 1980s.  San Diego had a mockup CSM for many years, but only recently acquired the flown CM when the Dearborn museum was closed.

I think you said it was on loan from the Smithsonian. Does NASA routinely give them title to flown hardware? Makes sense to me.

I don't know who manages the title and displays for flown hardware.