NASA Can't Legally Claim a Rover Prototype That Was Sold to an Alabama Scrapyard

NASA says it's interested in acquiring what is believed to be a lost lunar rover prototype from an Alabama scrapyard owner, but admits that it likely has no legal ownership over it or any way to compel him to donate it.

If you've been following along with our coverage of the lunar rover saga, that sentence will make sense. If not, you can get the long version here and here. The short version is this: Sometime early last year, a historian noticed what appeared to be a priceless lunar rover prototype rotting in someone's backyard in rural Alabama. The historian contacted NASA, which opened an investigation into the case. By the time NASA's investigatory arm tracked it down, it had been sold to a junkyard dealer. A report obtained by Motherboard using a Freedom of Information Act request suggested that the junkyard owner destroyed the rover.

Because identifying information on those documents was redacted and because NASA didn't initially respond to our request for more information, we published the documents and everything we knew about the rover in hopes someone would step forward to fill in the blanks. After the story was published, the junkyard owner contacted me to let me know that he had preserved the rover after he realized it was an important space artifact.

Here's where things get slightly complicated. Two NASA offices are involved in these proceedings: The Office of the Inspector General and the Marshall Space Flight Center History Office. The OIG deals with all manner of NASA- and space-related crime, mishaps, and misappropriation. The OIG was tasked with investigating whether or not NASA could reclaim the rover. Marshall Space Flight Center wanted (and still wants) the rover, but cannot compel the scrapyard owner to return it to them unless it can prove the item is NASA's rightful property. (Alternatively, the scrapyard owner could donate or loan it to NASA.)

The rover in question looked nearly identical to one from historical NASA documents, but had no NASA markings, serial numbers, or other paperwork to go along with it. James Ives, the head of NASA's Office of Investigations, told me that his office assists in recovering lost or stolen NASA property, so long as it can prove the agency has a "rightful claim to the property."

After investigating this particular case, the alleged rover in question could not be proven to be NASA property, he said.

"In the case of the rover prototype, we did not identify evidence of theft or misappropriation, and NASA informed us it would not make a claim to the item," he told me. "Consequently, we closed our investigation."

In a phone call, Tracy McMahan, a spokesperson for Marshall Space Flight Center did admit the OIG's closing document, which said that the item "had been sold for scrap" and "was no longer available for recovery" did have a note of finality that suggested the rover was gone for good. She said that neither OIG nor MSFC ever believed it was totally destroyed, however. She explained that there simply appears to be no legal way to compel the scrapyard owner to give the rover back to NASA, and so the agency gave up.

"There's nothing we could do—there were no markings on it, no NASA property tag or anything that would indicate that we could say 'This is our property.' We had no legal claim to it," she said. "We couldn't have our lawyers go to him and make him give it to us because we couldn't authenticate it. Unless he decides to give it to us, which we're not thinking he's going to, there's nothing we can do."

Just because it can't be authenticated does not mean it's not a lunar rover prototype. The agency was notoriously disorganized in the early days—plenty of property was given to ex employees or contractors or even thrown away without being tagged in any official way.

McMahan told me that the rover does appear to closely match the one being ridden by Saturn V rocket scientist Wernher von Braun in the photo above, but that historical photos do not carry legal weight.

"Our historian did examine the article in question, but all that was left was a metal structure, and it had no property identification," she said. "He was not able to authenticate it or confirm if it ever belonged to NASA nor its potential value. The structure did look like the metal structure of the Local Scientific Survey Module, a test article that was tested at Marshall in the 1960s. The article was designed and built by Brown Engineering as part of early concept studies, and the historian was not able to confirm that it was ever delivered to NASA."

A lack of authenticating documents or proof of ownership is something that big-time space memorabilia dealers run into regularly, according to Cassandra Hatton a specialist in space history at Bonhams auction house.

"How did it get into the junkyard? Was it stolen from NASA? Was it stolen from a museum? It gets iffy—if I say I found a spacesuit or a piece of a shuttle in an alley or an Army surplus, that's great, but I need to show a receipt that shows what it is," Hatton, who has no specific involvement or knowledge of this case, told me. "There are lots of cases where we see something but the person doesn't have a paper trail and you go, 'Wow, this is amazing,' but without authentication, there's nothing we can do."

That's how most large auction houses work; just because an artifact isn't technically authenticated doesn't mean it's worthless, doesn't mean it's not real, and doesn't mean it can't be sold privately.

There are still some remaining questions, then. How did a civilian in Alabama end up with what appears to be a lunar rover? Why did it sit in someone's backyard for, perhaps, decades? NASA says it's not sure. The scrapyard owner says there's more to the story that he'll be able to tell us once he's reasonably sure NASA isn't going to try to reclaim the rover from him. He had planned to sell it at a local Alabama auction next week, but he told me he's now weighing his options.

He's not going to give it up for free, however.

"In my mind, they tried to play a trickery game. [NASA] wanted me to loan it to them, but I think they just wanted to get it into their possession," the man, who requested to remain anonymous until he could talk with his lawyer, told me. "They offered me everything but cash."

Mcmahon said Marshall Space Flight Center and NASA as a whole is now very serious about keeping track of its things, perhaps to avoid situations like these.

"We at NASA try to preserve our history," she said. "Marshall has two Lunar Rovers in our artifacts collection that are identical to the design of the rovers on the Moon. We track these lunar rovers and other property in our procession very carefully with an electronic database and with barcodes.We also track articles loaned to museums."