Posts: 36931
From: Houston, TX
Registered: Nov 1999

posted 10-27-2011 01:22 PM               

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Ms. Davis' sample is very small, "smaller than a grain of rice."

quote:

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Originally posted by cosmos-walter:
Thus moon-dust might legally have become third-party property.

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Moon dust stained items were gifted to the astronauts, such as the patches from their spacesuits, but as Joe Schmitt describes in the quoted oral history, any loose particulate was cleaned off first.

Certificates and memos exist documenting these gifts.

It is reported that Ms. Davis' late husband said it was Neil Armstrong who gifted him the sample. Armstrong has rejected that claim in an affidavit. We also know from the research done for his authorized biography that he personally did not retain any artifacts from Apollo 11, including his patches, which along with his crewmates', were donated to the Smithsonian.