posted 04-23-2005 12:46 AM               

quote:

---

Some of the space artifacts listed as missing from the Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center's collection in a recent federal indictment of former Cosmosphere President Max Ary haven't just disappeared.

In fact, federal investigators have located more than half of the 26 items on loan to the Cosmosphere from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration that turned up missing in the museum's audit last spring.

But it's unclear exactly what efforts are under way to recover NASA's missing artifacts - and the unknown number of Cosmosphere-owned items thought to be missing. The total number of artifacts missing is expected to reach more than 100, officials previously said.

...

Four of those items currently are on loan to other museums, including three artifacts at the Omniplex Science Museum in Oklahoma City, where Ary remains on a leave of absence from his job as president.

...

Another NASA artifact on loan to the Cosmosphere is being displayed in the Cradle of Aviation Museum in Long Island, N.Y.

...

In the early 1990s, three NASA artifacts on loan to the Cosmosphere were loaned to the creators of the movie "Apollo 13" and were not returned.

---