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Sold: Apollo 11 moon dust

Sold: Apollo 11 moon dust

Released Thursday, 16th June 2022
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Sold: Apollo 11 moon dust

Sold: Apollo 11 moon dust

Sold: Apollo 11 moon dust

Sold: Apollo 11 moon dust

Thursday, 16th June 2022
Good episode? Give it some love!
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Episode Transcript

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0:00

This is Advertiser

0:02

content from Microsoft.

0:06

We

0:07

are decarbonizing this building. It's a single-family

0:09

home. If you can see, it's a Brooklyn townhouse, right?

0:11

It's three stories. I am Joe,

0:13

Combs, and i direct impact Investments

0:15

at Microsoft. We

0:17

invest in companies, like block power to drive

0:19

an impact in their community in the country or

0:21

across the world. And

0:23

that was to know, Baird. I'm

0:25

the CEO of of lock Power power block,

0:27

power is a climate startup that

0:30

be carbon. is buildings we remove

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all the fossil fuels and replace

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it with one hundred percent hundred in

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a building like problem is you're burning

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fossil fuels to provide heat and hot water

0:40

and cooking in our home it's incredibly

0:42

unhealthy it makes our kids sick and

0:45

then worse than the short

0:47

term unhealthiness of fossil fuels

0:49

in your home is it's terrible for

0:51

the planet and thirty percent of us greenhouse

0:53

gas emissions come from buildings

0:56

burning fossil fuels

0:57

there is no easier perfect solution for

1:00

climate change i'm and we hope that block

1:02

power really you know they really provide a win win

1:04

solution we are proud

1:06

of work that we are doing decarbonising buildings

1:08

decarbonising york city with the investment from

1:10

microsoft we're going be able to green buildings

1:12

across america

1:14

Go to vox.com. Greenovation

1:17

to learn more.

1:20

Hey everyone. It's Adam. As

1:22

recode daily is winding down. We're

1:25

running a of our favorite episodes

1:27

from The Archives.

1:29

today we're going to hear about this strange

1:31

history of some very famous moon

1:33

dust it was collected by neil

1:35

armstrong on first trip to the moon and

1:37

nineteen sixty nine and it went on

1:39

sale and april two one day after

1:41

he erred this episode though

1:43

we've added quick update the final sale

1:46

price and you say

1:48

or guess is back in the spring were

1:50

way off

1:56

it's rico daily i'm ronnie mola

1:59

daily

2:00

coming down the ladder now daily

2:04

show will take you back to nineteen sixty

2:06

nineteen astronauts neil armstrong

2:08

is about be the first man on moon harper

2:12

a promoter the ladder

2:14

there's just a few things to do before making

2:16

history like look down

2:19

american a very

2:23

, fine graders are two

2:25

hundred dollars by the standards and himself

2:28

as and

2:32

find place for his foot airport

2:35

acorn

2:45

bioware

2:51

they of course we know much more about the surface

2:54

the moon than armstrong or nasa dead at time

2:57

like that powder he mentioned the

2:59

actually really sharp it's like tiny pieces

3:01

glass so it's not particularly pleasant

3:04

that's rico's rebecca hi while the

3:06

and moon dust rap hasn't gotten

3:08

much better we actually do know why it

3:10

it tastes like it tastes

3:12

like done powder and it's also

3:15

really sticky so it gets

3:17

on everything

3:20

i'm lawyer or white

3:23

powder charcoal and your

3:27

own guys the bible

3:31

so to sum it up moon dust is

3:34

painful sticky and basically

3:36

the glitter of the galaxy and

3:38

tomorrow the first time in history

3:40

it's going on sale to the public or

3:42

amazon that's

3:44

yours twenty thousand five hundred weldon

3:48

you want to get how much is gonna

3:50

cost man people will pay

3:52

money for anything some enough the

3:54

am pretty high one

3:57

million dollars that

4:00

basically right so bonum saying

4:02

that it's going to exit it's

4:04

gonna go between eight hundred thousand and

4:06

one point two million won't

4:08

will have to see obviously that is very

4:11

pricey okay

4:13

so real quick the predator

4:15

out of here with your official sales price

4:18

the

4:18

moon dust ultimately sold for five hundred

4:20

thousand dollars and even though

4:22

that's less than it was expected to get i

4:25

think this next comment from broady

4:27

still applies

4:29

not too shabby for a bag dirt so why is nasa

4:31

selling this extraordinary

4:34

moon dust the thing is is nasa actually

4:36

not the one who's selling at nasa

4:38

has actually been trying to get it's hands on this very

4:41

historic moon dust for years

4:43

and years and years but nasa basically

4:45

lost it and legally haven't been able to

4:48

get their hands back on it how did not have

4:50

managed lose this moon dust

4:52

it's

4:54

a really long story so

4:56

everyone knows that neil armstrong

4:58

landed on moon nineteen sixty nine

5:00

and you know while he was there he scooped up

5:03

some wound us moon rocks put them in bag

5:05

and went back to his rocket put them in another

5:07

bag that was used for decontamination

5:09

and everything came back to planet earth

5:12

the thing about moon dust is that it's really

5:14

sticky and adhesive so even

5:16

after the contents of that bag

5:18

were used to study some of

5:20

that moon does actually stuck to

5:22

these bags only nasa didn't

5:25

keep very good track of it so

5:27

somehow somewhere at nasa lost

5:29

track of this decontamination bag

5:31

and it ended up leaving masses premises

5:34

where did it go

5:37

the bag of eventually

5:40

rediscovered in a species the

5:42

i'm in kansas called the causes

5:44

the are normally that would not be so weird

5:47

it's pretty common for artifacts to

5:49

end up at museum throughout the country but

5:51

it turned out that a curator at

5:53

this space museum was taking

5:55

some of the artifacts at the museum and

5:57

then trying to sell them off oh

6:00

so he ended getting convicted of fraud

6:03

and money laundering and when that happened

6:05

the us marshals service which is completely

6:07

different branch of the government from nasa

6:09

took custody of his stuff and

6:11

this inevitably included that bag

6:13

that was covered in moon dust you

6:15

know at one point it valued at just in dollars

6:18

why was it only valued at sixteen dollars

6:21

the time no one really realized

6:23

what this dog was even for it

6:25

was a bags heads the us marshals

6:27

service was auctioning off so completely

6:30

different branch of the government that nasa it

6:32

it's just like bag of dirt like fifty dollars

6:35

yeah so the bag changes hands and

6:37

it eventually ends up with a woman name's

6:39

nancy li carlson the nancy

6:41

as geology enthusiast and

6:43

she have hunch that this bag is actually

6:45

worth way more than she paid for it so

6:48

in twenty fifteenth she sends

6:50

off to nasa where it gets tested

6:52

and verified by nasa but

6:54

nasa tries to keep the bag instead

6:57

returning it to nancy witnesses

6:59

steals the bag yes they think

7:01

it belongs to nasa they realize that in fact

7:04

it is very valuable and the even

7:06

clean out the bag and take

7:08

out the moon dust that is traced the side

7:10

of it so nancy

7:12

have to sue to get everything back

7:15

eventually nasa loses and she gets

7:17

bad back and a separate samples

7:20

of moon dust and ever since

7:22

nasa has to have been you know dealing with the fact

7:24

that isn't as big legal battle trying to get

7:26

the moon best back into his possession

7:29

never trust

7:31

nasa with and who come here

7:33

the dust they lose it's a steal

7:35

at all sorts of stuff okay so

7:38

is there anything stopping nasa from to spying

7:40

the moon dust back at auction tomorrow

7:42

though i asked the agency for comment

7:45

on it so latest approach to moon dust

7:47

didn't get response to her by

7:50

maybe that will show up to the bidding

7:52

i don't think that's something that they would do but

7:54

who knows and ah you know have

7:56

to say and what happens

7:58

if someone else hi is this very

8:02

in demand moon dust

8:04

so on the one hand it's not the

8:06

end of the world for nasa you know turns

8:08

out that the agency aren't a lot of lunar samples

8:10

from the apollo missions and masses

8:13

rt racing to launch the arguments program

8:15

which is supposed to pick up where

8:17

this apollo program laptop

8:20

and you know all of those samples that

8:22

nasa collects on those missions could probably

8:24

end up being super important too

8:26

but the same time it there reasons why

8:28

nasa wanted this moon dust

8:30

back

8:34

how about airport

8:41

all birds

8:45

or

8:50

a piece of history it's very special

8:52

you know it's from the moment that humanity first step

8:54

foot on moon for the first time i

8:57

look around at ,

8:59

dot out your phone and like

9:02

what by to the high desert of for for

9:05

states government it's

9:07

pretty either

9:13

there's something i've been wondering about throughout

9:15

this whole side

9:16

the who owns the mood

9:18

who owns moon dust

9:20

as as the astronaut he picks it up the agency

9:23

who sent him the people

9:25

who pay the taxes to fund that agency the skills

9:27

really the already and complicated

9:30

it is barry is not a

9:32

clear answer here astronauts

9:34

who participated in the us as early

9:37

space program of actually like legally

9:39

fought for the right to maintain and

9:41

so artifacts they held onto

9:43

from their missions and with the exception

9:45

of moon dust which nasa has maintained

9:47

it's the only legal owner of moon

9:50

dust but nasa really believe

9:52

that it's generally should have the

9:54

right to these artifacts and it has gotten

9:56

stricter about keeping the stuff

9:58

that it uses or in faith

10:01

and that's especially important because

10:03

now there's this growing debate about

10:05

whether it's right for any one person or

10:07

government to possess something that you know

10:09

to pass significance to all humanity

10:11

or you know is arguably part of

10:13

the moon natural environment or

10:16

whether it's just a bag of dust

10:18

rebecca thank you so much for to any me things

10:21

are happening

10:23

today's episode

10:24

the trees by taylor megan and

10:26

engineered by john errands i'm

10:28

ronnie mola thanks for listening

10:39

this is advertiser content from microsoft

10:43

we

10:45

are decarbonising this building is a single

10:47

family home but can see it the brooklyn townhouse

10:49

right it's three stories i'm

10:51

sean combs i direct impact investments

10:53

microsoft

10:54

we invest in companies like blocked our to drive

10:57

an impact in their community in country

10:59

or across the world

11:01

that was dunno bears and

11:03

, sea of lock power power block

11:05

power is a climate tech start up dot

11:08

c harmonizes buildings we remove

11:10

all of fossil fuels and replace

11:12

it with a hundred plenty hundred in

11:14

building like that the problem as you're burning

11:16

fossil fuels the provide heat and hot water

11:18

and cooking in our home is incredibly

11:20

unhealthy and make our kids sick and

11:23

then worse than the short

11:25

term on healthiness of fossil fuels

11:27

in your home is it's terrible for

11:29

the planet and thirty percent of us greenhouse

11:31

gas emissions come from building

11:33

burning fossil fuel there

11:35

is know easy are perfect solution for climate

11:38

change a and we hope the block power

11:40

really you know they really provide win win solution

11:43

we , proud of the work that we are during the carbonized

11:45

buildings new york city with the investment

11:47

from microsoft we are going be able to

11:49

green buildings across america go

11:52

to vox dot com slash green innovation

11:55

to learn more

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