[meteorite-list] Moon Rocks' Valuation Gets Attention

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 10:16:30 2004
Message-ID: <200308071454.HAA12274_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://www.floridatoday.com/news/space/stories/2003b/080703moonvalue.htm

Moon rocks' valuation gets attention

Free market may value 'priceless' items higher

By John Kelly and Kelly Young
FLORIDA TODAY
August 7, 2003

ORLANDO -- They may look like charcoal briquettes, but moon rocks are more
valuable than any Earthbound precious metal, judging by a court declaration
issued Wednesday.

Prosecutors and defense attorneys for two NASA interns accused of aiding in
the theft of moon rocks and Martian meteorites from JSC agreed to value the
substances at between $2.5 million and $7 million.

In 1993, Sotheby's sold moon material brought back by an unmanned Soviet
spacecraft at a price equivalent to about $2.2 million per gram.

Using that standard, the 101.5 grams stolen from JSC might be worth as much
as $223 million, though it's impossible to know what the true value would be
since the merchandise in this case was stolen and might have had to be sold
secretly -- basically on the black market.

Gold was trading Wednesday at $352 per Troy ounce, or $11.33 per gram. So a
comparable volume of gold would be worth $1,149.

NASA has never placed a market value on the moon rocks.

"We have no reason to do that," NASA spokesman Doc Mirelson said.

According to NASA's Office of the Inspector General, the missing lunar
samples were valued at about $1 million based on their use in scientific
research.

The Martian meteorites, part of a larger collection collected in Antarctica,
were priced at $1.8 million based on their believed market value.

For space enthusiasts, the more interesting element of the episode was
figuring out the value of what many scientists and collectors deem priceless
items.

"Despite there being a moon for the picking just hanging in the sky, and
even if we return to its surface someday to bring back more moon rocks, I
believe the original 842 pounds returned on mankind's first 'giant leap'
will always be more prized than future samples," said Robert Pearlman,
editor of collectSPACE, an expert on space memorabilia. "It's paramount to
owning a piece of Plymouth Rock, only on an interplanetary scale."

The valuation occurred Tuesday just before the sentencing of two NASA
interns, Tiffany Fowler and Shae Sauer, in U.S. District Court in Orlando on
Wednesday.

The two, who were found guilty of collaborating with two others to pilfer
the space rocks and other items from Johnson Space Center and sell them,
were sentenced to three years' probation. The other two defendants are Thad
Roberts and Gordon McWhorter.

The co-conspirators apparently were trying to sell the rocks on the Internet
for between $1,000 and $10,000 per gram.

Roberts boasted in a fax that he was offering the "world's largest private"
and only "verifiable" Apollo rock collection. The fax went to an undercover
agent he thought was a potential buyer.

"I have been following 'legal' purchases of lunar meteorites, which
currently sell for $4000.00/g," the fax said.

The initial indictment of Roberts and McWhorter states, "NASA's lunar
samples had a fair market value of between thousands of dollars per gram and
hundreds of thousands of dollars per gram, depending upon, among other
factors, the size, weight and quality of any particular sample."
Received on Thu 07 Aug 2003 10:54:14 AM PDT