The material, a NASA lawyer said in a
letter to the auctioneer, still belongs to the federal government.
"The material from the experiment,
including a vial with about 40 milligrams of moon dust and three cockroach
carcasses, was expected to sell for at least $400,000, but has been pulled from
the auction block," RR said on Thursday.
“All Apollo samples, as stipulated in this
collection of items, belong to NASA and no person, university, or other entity
has ever been given permission to keep them after analysis, destruction, or
other use for any purpose, especially for sale or individual display,” said
NASA's letter dated June 15.
It went on: “We are requesting that you no
longer facilitate the sale of any and all items containing the Apollo 11 Lunar
Soil Experiment (the cockroaches, slides, and post-destructive testing
specimen) by immediately stopping the bidding process," NASA wrote.
In another letter dated June 22, NASA's
lawyer asked RR Auction to work with the current owner of the material to
return it to the federal government.
The Apollo 11 mission brought more than 47
pounds (21.3 kilograms) of lunar rock back to Earth. Some was fed to insects,
fish and other small creatures to see if it would kill them.
The cockroaches that were fed moon dust
were brought to the University of Minnesota where entomologist Marion Brooks
dissected and studied them.
“I found no evidence of infectious
agents," Brooks, who died in 2007, told the Minneapolis Tribune for an
October 1969 story. She found no evidence that the moon material was toxic or
caused any other ill effects in the insects, according to the article.
But the moon rock and the cockroaches were
never returned to NASA, instead displayed at Brooks' home. Her daughter sold
them in 2010, and now they are up for sale again by a consignor who RR did not
disclose.