A historic NASA Moon bird of passage is most probably feel in a museum or , at least , heroically strand on the lunar surface . However , a peculiar turn of events of fate led to one of NASA ’s Moon rovers being found in an Alabama scrap one thousand .
After crap requests through the Freedom of Information Act , a newsman atMotherboarddiscovered that a NASA space rover was sold for combat alloy to a junkyard in Alabama last yr .
The special story occur to visible light when an Air Force historiographer was visiting his mother in Blountsville , Alabama . He looked across the street and saw a priceless NASA lunar rover in a neighbour ’s backyard . Sometime around former 2014 , he get hold of NASA about it but , by the time they had look into , the proprietor had died and his Moon rover was sold as scrap metal .
The forlorn lunar rover is believed to be an early paradigm for theApollo missions , which was tested at NASA ’s Marshall Space Flight Center in 1965 and 1966 . NASA believes the rover in head is an early prototype of a Local Scientific Study Module ( LSSM ) . Since this rover was just used for examination ride , it ’s very unlikely it ever trod the Moon ’s surface .
It ’s unsure how much money the rover is worth as there are very few instances of private collectors buy Moon rovers , specially dark prototypes . However , buyingspace memorabilia candent even the fattest of pocketbook . In 2011 , the spacesuit for spaceman Alexei Leonov sell for $ 242,000 ( £ 158,594 ) and a notebook from Apollo 13 can be you upward of $ 388,375 ( £ 254,521 ) .
No one is sure how the rover finish up in a backyard in Alabama or why it was sold to a chip yard . The documents from the Freedom of Information Act were report and messages from NASA ’s Office of the Inspector General , the arm of NASA that investigates lose or slip NASA prop . Due to the nature of these reports , a lot of the information is still censored and cast . However , it come out the full history of the lunar rover is lost , even to NASA .
However , there ’s salutary word for this fall hero . Motherboard report that the scrap thousand owner got in physical contact with them after hearing about their clause . change state out , he ’s actuallyrenovating the prototype Moon scouter .
you may see out the full write - up onMotherboardbyJason Koebler , where you may also read the reports and e-mail from NASA stress to figure out what the hell went on .
