[meteorite-list] Lorton meteorite should be 'the people's rock'

From: Martin Altmann <altmann_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Sat, 6 Feb 2010 02:32:02 +0100
Message-ID: <001501caa6cc$313ad980$07b22959_at_name86d88d87e2>

No, I asked, how we survived without.

When the day is long, I sometimes think, why hasn't Andorra a meteorite law
yet? But Denmark has.

Seriously, everything was going perfectly without meteorite laws, nobody
felt a need for meteorite laws.
Especially in the last 10-20 years, the find rates exploded,
for 10 years the prices dropped, meteorites became readily available at
will, even the most weird types, and very important new ones were recovered,
- available at will for researchers and private collectors and that at so
low prices, never seen before.

And what do we had to see? Even in these very recent few years?
A torrent of laws.

Well, in the 1980ies some got worried, thought it will be more helpful, to
have laws, cause they thought more meteorites will end up in the institutes,
so they made the experiment, see Australia.

Result was, that Australia was catapulted from rank N?3 of the meteorite
nations into Nirwana, and erased from the map of meteoritics,
as no finds were made anymore.

Did we learn a thing from that?
No.

On contrary, laws, laws, laws, in Denmark, in China, in Oman, in Poland, in
Algeria, in Argentina....

Libya was left from the hunters, find rates dropped to 3%.
Oman, when the privateers made it arable, the officials came, which couldn't
even spell the word "meteorite" before and found it nicely done for
themselves, since then a tiny group of a few individuals tried everything to
kick the hunters out, if we deduct the finds of the normal hunters - what
will be left?

Algeria, not a single effort ever, to do something for meteorites.
But laws...

The first reports from the Tucson show are coming in.
By all means they are appalling. Again less material, prices multiplied.

Don't get me wrong, USA is meteoritically seen one of the last few civilized
countries (Germany too),
and nothing against Franconia... but shall this really be the future of
meteoritics?


It is difficult to bear.
Those laws happen always at the instigation of a very few individuals.
What for a hubris a person must have, what for a self-righteousness,
which allows him or her, to bring a whole branch of a science, which is
established for 200 years, down and to put himself above those, who produce
the meteorites and above his colleagues?
And if one thinks about the costs, the public will have to bear then.
Shawn, I hear so often from universities and museums, oh, that sample we
can't afford. What will they say, what will they do, if meteorites due to
these laws will cost later 5 times or 30 times more, because there aren't
any anymore? Scaremongering? Not at all, I still knew the times, when the
prices were so high, and the curators, if they are looking in the archives,
know it too, that they had to pay such prices for the 200 years before.

It makes no sense. Also not for these people themselves, they win nothing,
but they loose almost all.

And I can't understand them, what for an irresponsibility!


Shawn, enjoy these years, they are the last.
The change, we all warned against, has begun.

And be told, what we loose once,
we never will get back again.

So let Lorton be Lorton,
who cares, if the Smithonian will buy it from the doc or from the landlord.
We have rather to decide the future of meteoritics, science and collecting,
before it will be fully too late.

Ouch!
Martin




 
  




 

-----Urspr?ngliche Nachricht-----
Von: meteorite-list-bounces at meteoritecentral.com
[mailto:meteorite-list-bounces at meteoritecentral.com] Im Auftrag von Shawn
Alan
Gesendet: Samstag, 6. Februar 2010 01:04
An: meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com
Betreff: [meteorite-list] Lorton meteorite should be 'the people's rock'

Well... whether it was an ownerless object, whether it became part of the
ground....

I have a question:

How could we and science survive 200 years,
how could Homo Sapiens survive 200,000 years
and how could survive this planet 4 500 000 000 years

without any law about ownership of meteorites ?
?
?
Hi Martin and Listers
?
Are you asking does the human race need laws on ownership of meteorites to
survive?
?
Shawn Alan

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Received on Fri 05 Feb 2010 08:32:02 PM PST