Government sues Apollo 14 astronaut over lunar camera

Astronaut Edgar Mitchell on the surface of the moon during the 1971 Apollo 14 mission.

Credit: Reuters/NASA

NEW YORK | Fri Jul 1, 2011 11:57am EDT

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The U.S. government has sued a former NASA astronaut to recover a camera used to explore the moon's surface during the 1971 Apollo 14 mission after seeing it slated for sale in a New York auction.

The lawsuit, filed in Miami federal court on Wednesday, accuses Edgar Mitchell of illegally possessing the camera and attempting to sell it for profit.

In March, NASA learned that the British auction house Bonhams was planning to sell the camera at an upcoming Space History Sale, according to the suit.

The item was labeled "Movie Camera from the Lunar Surface" and billed as one of two cameras from the Apollo 14's lunar module Antares. The lot description said the item came "directly from the collection" of pilot Edgar Mitchell and had a pre-sale estimate of $60,000 to $80,000, the suit said.

Mitchell was a lunar module pilot on Apollo 14, which launched its nine-day mission in 1971 under the command of Alan Shepard. The sixth person to walk on the moon, Mitchell is now retired and runs a website selling his autographed picture.

He has made headlines in the past for his stated belief in the existence of extraterrestrial life.

"All equipment and property used during NASA operations remains the property of NASA unless explicitly released or transferred to another party," the government suit said, adding NASA had no record of the camera being given to Mitchell.

The suit said the government had made repeated requests to Mitchell and his lawyer to return the camera but received no response.

Mitchell's lawyer, Donald Jacobson, said NASA management was aware of and approved Mitchell's ownership of the camera 40 years ago.

"Objects from the lunar trips to the moon were ultimately mounted and then presented to the astronauts as a gift after they had helped NASA on a mission," Jacobson said.

Bonhams said in an emailed statement that the camera had been slated to be auctioned off in May when it learned about the ownership dispute from NASA. The auction house withdrew the camera from sale "pending further discussion between NASA and the consignor," a Bonhams spokesperson said.

The government is asking the court to stop Mitchell from selling the camera to anyone, to order its return and to declare that the United States has "good, clean and exclusive title" to the camera.

(Reporting by Terry Baynes; Editing by Cynthia Johnston)

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Japan experts design superelastic alloy, may resist quakes

By Tan Ee Lyn

HONG KONG | Thu Jun 30, 2011 2:09pm EDT

HONG KONG (Reuters) - Researchers in Japan have developed a superelastic alloy, which can spring back to its original form in extreme temperatures, they said in a report on Friday, adding that they hope it may be used in buildings to absorb shocks from earthquakes.

The experts, who wrote about their invention in the journal Science, added a small amount of nickel to an iron-based alloy, and found that the new material can recover its original shape at any temperature from -196 to 240 degrees Celsius.

Lead author Toshihiro Omori at the Department of Materials Science, Graduate School of Engineering in Tohoku University, said this new material was far more elastic than other superelastic alloys, which cannot revert to their original form outside the -20 to 80 degrees Celsius range.

"Our ferrous alloy has temperature insensitivity by one order of magnitude. This property is very important because materials are subject to change in temperature in most cases," Omori wrote in an email in response to questions from Reuters.

"Another advantage is its low cost. The raw material is cheap ... resulting in the potential for large scale applications," Omori wrote.

The material may be used in environments that are constantly exposed to extreme temperatures, such as joints and controls in cars, planes and spacecraft, Omori and his colleagues said.

It may also help buildings cushion stress and violent movement in earthquakes, the materials science experts added.

MATERIALS SCIENCE RESEARCH TAKES OFF IN ASIA

Research in materials science has taken off in the past 30 years, led by Asia and especially China, according to findings of a study released this week by Thomson Reuters.

The study found that around 1.1 million papers involving materials science have been published annually in recent years.

Much of Asia's sharp rise in materials science research comes from China, which published more than 55,000 papers over the last 5 years, up from fewer than 50 papers in 1981.

By comparison, the United States published 38,189 papers over the same period but since the early 1980s, its world share in this field has fallen by nearly half. A similar decline was also seen in the European Union.

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Benefit of mammograms even greater than thought

A doctor exams mammograms, a special type of X-ray of the breasts, which is used to detect tumours as part of a regular cancer prevention medical check-up at a clinic in Nice, south eastern France January 4, 2008.

Credit: Reuters/Eric Gaillard

By Julie Steenhuysen

CHICAGO | Tue Jun 28, 2011 1:35am EDT

CHICAGO (Reuters) - The longest-running breast cancer screening study ever conducted has shown that regular mammograms prevent deaths from breast cancer, and the number of lives saved increases over time, an international research team said on Tuesday.

The study of 130,000 women in two communities in Sweden showed 30 percent fewer women in the screening group died of breast cancer and that this effect persisted year after year.

Now, 29 years after the study began, the researchers found that the number of women saved from breast cancer goes up with each year of screening.

"We've found that the longer we look, the more lives are saved," Professor Stephen Duffy of Queen Mary, University of London, whose study was published in the journal Radiology, said in a statement.

Dr. Stamatia Destounis, a radiologist at Elizabeth Wende Breast Care in Rochester, New York, who was not involved in the study, said radiologists have been quoting results of the Swedish study for years and the new findings show breast cancer screening is "even more of a benefit than we understood."

She said sweeping changes in the U.S. screening guidelines two years ago that scaled back recommendations on breast cancer screening caused a lot of confusion among doctors and patients about the benefits of mammograms.

"We've had to do a lot of education of the patients and their doctors. This will help for that," Destounis said.

In the study, women were divided into two groups, one that received an invitation to have breast cancer screening and another that received usual care.

The screening phase of the trial lasted about seven years. Women between 40 and 49 were screened every two years, and women 50 to 74 were screened roughly every three years.

"Our results indicate that in 1,000 women screened for 10 years, three breast cancer deaths would be prevented," Duffy said, adding that most of the deaths prevented would have occurred more than a decade after the screening had started.

"This indicates that the long-term benefits of screening in terms of deaths prevented are more than double those often quoted for short-term follow-up."

The new data adds to evidence on the long-term benefits of regular mammography screening.

SCREENING CONTROVERSY

New breast screening recommendations issued in 2009 by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, an influential advisory group, recommended against routine mammograms for women in their 40s and said women in their 50s should get mammograms every other year instead of every year.

The guidelines contradicted years of messages about the need for routine breast cancer screening starting at age 40, eliciting protests from breast cancer experts and advocacy groups who argued the recommendation for fewer screenings would confuse women and result in more deaths from breast cancer.

The changes were meant to spare women some of the worry and expense of extra tests needed to distinguish between cancer and harmless lumps. But the latest results from the Swedish study show the rate of false positive results was low.

"We saw the actual number of overdiagnosed cases was really very small -- less than 5 percent of the total," Robert Smith, director of cancer screening at the American Cancer Society and one of the study's authors, said in a telephone interview.

Many groups, including the American Cancer Society, have stuck by their long-standing recommendations of a yearly breast exam for women starting at age 40, stressing that the breast X-rays have been proven to save lives by spotting tumors early, when they are most easily treated.

"I think for anybody who was beginning to have their faith shaken in the value of mammography, these data show mammography is quite valuable as a public health approach to reducing deaths from breast cancer," Smith said.

Duffy said he thinks screening women 40 to 54 every 18 months and screening women 55 and older every two years would be a reasonable schedule.

He said the new findings do not speak to the frequency of screening issue, but they do make clear that screening works.

"Everyone must make up their own mind, but certainly from combined results from all the screening trials, mammography in women aged 40-49 does reduce deaths from breast cancer," he said.

Breast cancer is the second-leading cause of cancer death among U.S. women, after lung cancer. It kills 500,000 people globally every year and is diagnosed in close to 1.3 million people around the world.

(Editing by Todd Eastham)

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Hubble Telescope Marked Highlight of Space Shuttle Program (ContributorNetwork)

Yahoo! News asked its readers and contributors to share their memories of the space shuttle program as it nears its end in July. Below is a story from a contributor.

[Your Voice: Sign up with the Yahoo! Contributor Network to share your thoughts.]

As the final mission of Space Shuttle Atlantis approaches, marking the retirement of NASA's shuttle fleet, many of us are filled with nostalgia. Whether it is the youngest generation, which is just learning about the shuttle this year, or older ones like mine that can still remember debates over the costs of the plan to build a fleet of these ships, everyone has their own unique memories.

My personal favorite memory -- what I believe was the shuttle's finest hour -- was its first successful repair of the Hubble Space Telescope. After Hubble was launched into orbit by Space Shuttle Discovery in April 1990, it soon became clear that it was suffering from a flawed mirror that distorted its much anticipated photos of space. Despite attempts to correct them, it seemed the entire project was a failure. NASA's expertise in space was in question. Nothing seemed to be going right.

I could relate. In the early 1990s, the country was suffering another recession, just as I was finishing school and entering the job market. My relationships with family and friends were changing, and everyone seemed to be getting more cynical about everything. Life was quickly losing its wonder.

Then in December 1993, the newest shuttle of the fleet, Endeavour, embarked on a mission to the Hubble Space Telescope to repair its problems, and enhance its capabilities. I watched every newscast during its mission, and was truly impressed by the complex repairs the shuttle astronauts were doing; replacing gyroscopes, large solar panels, delicate lenses, and computer components. Not an easy job on Earth, much less in space. The mission turned out to be a great success, and Hubble was repaired.

If the space shuttles (and their crews) could successfully repair large objects in space, they could also build new ones.

Now, a little more than 18 years after that mission, the Hubble Space Telescope is still functioning and the International Space Station is now complete. Humanity has its first permanent fixture in space, and just as so many of us knew when Hubble was first repaired, the meaning of the Space Station is far more than scientific study.

If a space station can be built in orbit, a space port can be added to it. So can shipyards, where larger spaceships can ultimately be built. The ISS is our springboard into space, from where (over time) humanity will spread further out in exploration and commerce.

All this was made possible largely thanks to the Space Shuttle. It was already a marvel of invention in itself when it was put into service in the 1980s. It has been a critical tool in the quest to realize that great things can be completed, that dreams are worth having and pursuing, and that life can still be filled with wonder.

To the Space Shuttle Fleet (both past and present), we should wish the following;

Thanks for the memories of the past, and the dreams of the future.

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NASA's Next Mars Rover Lands ... in Florida (SPACE.com)

NASA's next Mars rover to explore the Red Planet landed in Florida yesterday (June 22) after a cross-country flight, marking a key milestone on the road to its planned launch this fall.

The Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) rover, also known as Curiosity, arrived at NASA's Kennedy Space Center aboard an Air Force C-17 transport plane. Also making the trip was the novel rocket-powered descent stage that will fly the rover during the final moments before landing on Mars, NASA officials said.

The C-17 took off from March Air Reserve Base in Riverside, Calif. The rover and the descent stage had been trucked there from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in nearby Pasadena. JPL is managing the $2.5 billion MSL mission.

The rover's aeroshell and cruise stage — which will protect the rover and guide it, respectively, during the nine-month journey to the Red Planet — arrived at Kennedy last month. The MSL mission is slated to launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station between Nov. 25 and Dec. 18, and the car-size rover should touch down on Mars in August 2012. [Video: Curiosity to Make Unusual Landing on Mars]

"The design and building part of the mission is nearly behind us now," said JPL's David Gruel, manager of MSL assembly, test and launch operations. "We're getting to final checkouts before sending the rover on its way to Mars."

The rover and other spacecraft components will undergo more testing in Florida before mission staff stack them and fuel the onboard propulsion systems.

Curiosity should be enclosed in its aeroshell for the final time in September and delivered to Kennedy's Launch Complex 41 in early November for integration with a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket, NASA officials said.

Curiosity is about twice as long and more than five times as heavy as any previous Mars rover. Its 10 science instruments include two for ingesting and analyzing samples of powdered rock delivered by the
rover's robotic arm.

During a prime mission lasting one Martian year (nearly two Earth years), researchers will use the rover's tools to study whether Curiosity's landing region is, or ever was, capable of supporting microbial life. Mission planners have narrowed the possible landing sites to four choices and are expected to select one soon.

Follow SPACE.com for the latest in space science and exploration news on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

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'Missing' Moon Dust Turns Up at St. Louis Auction (SPACE.com)

NASA has recovered a few grains of moon dust after learning that the lunar material was set to be auctioned off in St. Louis this month, federal prosecutors announced Thursday (June 23).

There's not much of the stuff — just some residue attached to a piece of transparent tape one-eighth of an inch (3 millimeters) wide. But its origin and history are what make the dust special: It came down to Earth in July 1969 with the Apollo 11 astronauts, who were the first humans to set foot on the lunar surface.

The United States Attorney's Office for Eastern Missouri learned in early June that the moon dust was going to be auctioned off in St. Louis. NASA investigators then contacted the auction house, Regency-Superior Auctions, which withdrew the material, prosecutors said.

Officials from the U.S. Attorney's Office took possession of the tape last Friday (June 17), then handed it over to NASA. The material was returned to the agency's Johnson Space Center in Houston on Monday (June 20). [Photos: Our Changing Moon]

The federal government regards the Apollo lunar samples as national treasures. It has never knowingly given moon rocks or loose moon dust to private individuals. But no arrests have been made in this case.

The woman who consigned the tape to Regency-Superior inherited it from her late husband, who apparently acquired it in good faith, officials said. The woman's name has not been released.

"In this particular situation, there was no wrong done," said space history expert Robert Pearlman, editor of the website collectSPACE.com, which is a SPACE.com partner. "Everyone cooperated."

Selling is not a crime

It's not illegal per se to sell lunar materials, Pearlman said. It all depends on how the seller came into possession of the samples. And people have gotten a hold of moon dust legally.

For example, NASA gave Apollo astronauts the patches from the outsides of their spacesuits, which had become impregnated with lunar dust. And the agency once released from its inventory a so-called "temporary stowage bag" used on one of the Apollo flights to hold small items during the mission.

In the course of the flight, the items placed in the bag stained the interior with moon dust. When the bag was later sold during an Oct. 2000 auction, its new owner found some smatterings of the remaining moon dust inside when he opened it up, Pearlman said.

A dusty film cartridge

The moon dust to be auctioned in St. Louis this month was originally lodged in the film cartridge of a camera used by Apollo 11 astronauts, who apparently dropped it on the surface of the moon.

Back then, a NASA employee named Terry Slezak was in charge of processing the film brought back from the Apollo missions. When he opened this particular cartridge, dust poured out, getting all over his hands. Slezak thus became the non-astronaut ever to touch lunar material with his bare hands.

According to Slezak, he used a towel and some transparent tape to clear the dust off the film, the New York Times reported.

The Apollo 11 astronauts later presented Slezak with a signed commemorative poster board, complete with pictures showing a smiling Slezak holding his dusty hand up for the camera. Slezak affixed the dusty piece of tape to the poster.

"I thought that would be kind of neat," Slezak told the Times.

Slezak sold the poster at auction in 2001 for just over $25,000, Pearlman said. While Slezak was never authorized to take the dust-flecked tape, he maintains that NASA has never questioned him about the matter.

Later, the dusty tape from the poster board was cut up into tiny pieces, some of which were also put up for sale. A piece three-eighths of an inch (9 mm) wide has sold for about $6,000, and slivers the size of the one Regency-Superior was going to auction off have been offered at nearly $1,000, Pearlman said.

Moon rocks for sale?

NASA astronauts brought 842 pounds (382 kilograms) of lunar material home to Earth between 1969 and 1972, souvenirs from their Apollo moonwalking jaunts. A court has valued this stuff at $1.44 million per ounce ($50,800 per gram), based on how much those NASA missions cost.

The space agency has given small amounts of moon material to national and state governments over the years. But NASA hangs on tightly to the rest of it.

"They track it very well," Pearlman said, adding that less than 1 ounce (28 g) of the lunar samples is thought to be unaccounted for.

But moon rocks, real or fake, are circulating on the market.

Just last month, NASA officials busted a woman who was trying to sell a purported moon rock for $1.7 million. The moon rock sting went down in a Denny's restaurant in Lake Elsinore, Calif.

While the auction of this tiny tape sliver seems to be small potatoes by comparison, Pearlman said he understands why NASA works so hard to recover lunar materials.

"You can't undo precedent," Pearlman said. "They want to be able to defend when there are large missing moon rocks, if that ever comes up. So they have to respond to every report that they receive."

Preliminary analysis of the dust on the tape indicates that it likely is of lunar origin, though it will take two to three weeks to confirm this definitively, prosecutors said.

You can follow SPACE.com senior writer Mike Wall on Twitter: @michaeldwall. Follow SPACE.com for the latest in space science and exploration news on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

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Moon Dust Missing for 40 Years Is Found at Auction House (Time.com)

It was one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind, and a lot of people wanted a piece of it. Now, some 40 years after moon dust brought back from the Apollo 11 mission went missing, it was recovered at a St. Louis auction house and returned to the Johnson Space Center in Houston this week.

"It's a speck - the size of a fingertip," said David Kols of Regency-Superior auction house, where the dust had been placed for sale. "But it's lunar material, and since we're not going back to the moon in my lifetime or yours, that makes it worth a lot to some people." (See TIME's special report on the 40th anniversary of the moon landing.)

The U.S. attorney's office in St. Louis, which announced the recovery of the moon dust on June 23, said that investigators with NASA believed the dust had come from the film cartridge of a camera used by astronauts on humanity's first trip to the moon in 1969. The dust was lifted from the cartridge using a 1-in. (2.5 cm) piece of clear tape. Somehow, it reached the black market and was sold in 2001, NASA investigators believe, to a German collector who cut up the tape into tiny slivers rather than return it to the U.S. government.

When investigators from both NASA and the U.S. attorney's office noticed moon dust listed for sale in St. Louis, they shut down the transaction with the cooperation of the auction house and the seller. The widow trying to sell the dust - her name was not released - said she didn't know where her late husband had purchased it. She "immediately and graciously agreed to relinquish it back to the American people," the U.S. attorney's office said.

The auction house had estimated its value at $1,000 to $1,500. (See photos of Mercury.)

Preliminary testing by the Johnson Space Center's lab has concluded that the material in "all likelihood" is lunar, but final results will take a few weeks.

More than 800 lb. (363 kg) of moon rocks, pebbles, sand and dust were ferried back to Earth during the Apollo lunar missions, which ended in late 1972. The overwhelming majority of the material was kept for analysis, but a handful of samples were given to museums, individual states and foreign dignitaries. Some are now unaccounted for, and there are many fakes for sale. A moon rock given to Missouri during the administration of Governor Christopher "Kit" Bond, who was first elected in 1972, was found last year in a box of memorabilia when Bond cleaned out his office after four terms in the U.S. Senate. Bond promptly returned the rock to the current governor, Jay Nixon.

The story of the film canister and the stolen dust had been considered a hoax by some, U.S. attorney Rich Callahan said. This discovery, even a little speck, suggests the story is true - though you have to peer really, really close. "The truth is, it's not much to look at," said Callahan. "You have to believe it's there."

See amazing photos of the sun.

See photos of the moon's eclipse.

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