posted 03-06-2007 12:45 PM               

If it were more practical, I would suggest opening the matter to peer review. But we are making assumptions based on only a couple photos that back gikev's claims (who, no offense intended, but is clearly biased in the matter).

posted 03-06-2007 01:03 PM               

"But we are making assumptions based on only a couple photos..."

posted 03-06-2007 07:24 PM               

Isn't it at least a good possibility that rubber rings made from the same mold would have similar markings?

posted 03-06-2007 07:28 PM               

quote:

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Originally posted by Adam S:
Isn't it at least a good possibility that rubber rings made from the same mold would have similar markings?

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posted 03-07-2007 02:00 AM               

quote:

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Originally posted by gikev:
That's why I felt that matching the imperfections of the rubber was like matching a fingerprint. I would think it unlikely, or nearly impossible, to fabricate two identical rubber seals using this method.

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I do not doubt a compelling arguement has been made to date, but I need more evidence to be convinced.

posted 03-08-2007 05:27 PM               

I'll bet that she will say no more, for obvious reasons.

If your claim is correct (and I do not doubt that it very well might be correct), and you have the helmet worn on the last Mercury flight, then either NASA or The Smithsonian screwed up, and when was the last time you met a bureaucrat voluntarily willing to admit to making a mistake?

In any event, the Smithsonian is powerless to act were they to come to the conclusion that they have the wrong helmet on Cooper's suit. If any action were to be taken, it would have to be taken by NASA, and I have no doubt that they would act to recover the helmet were they to become convinced that such a treasure had escaped them...

I also don't blame you for trying to cash in on this if your claim is correct... who wouldn't? (Well maybe someone so rich that $300,000 meant nothing to them.)

The fact remains however, that if your claim is correct, the helmet truly does belong in the Smithsonian, and they would owe you big time if you brought it to NASA for verification. For what its worth, the right thing for you to do IMHO, would be to contact the right people at NASA, and let them examine the helmet.

If it is the helmet that flew on the last Mercury flight, I'm sure they would very appreciative, and since the Smithsonian has far more (un-flown) hardware like this than they need for their exhibits, I believe that some sort of suitable trade would be offered to you in exchange for the helmet.

Having your name on a plaque might not be as attractive as having the $300,000, however you exposed yourself to that possibility when you tried to sell it in such a public forum.

posted 03-08-2007 08:13 PM               

My comments on this thread and on eBay were never meant to embarrass anyone at NASA or NASM or to call into question the policies or practices of those two organizations.

I see myself in a situation similar to the person who buys a painting at a yard sale only to find out later that an original hand written copy of the Gettysburg Address has been hidden in the frame. What should that individual do? What would you do?

posted 03-08-2007 08:28 PM               

It sounds like a plausible explanation to me -- and nobody posted an opposing position.

His scenario would tend to make sense -- taking into account the fast paced development, at that time, of the space program.

posted 03-08-2007 08:35 PM               

quote:

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Originally posted by gikev:
As for your idea about "trading" for something in the museum collection - I would be shocked and disappointed in any museum that would engage in anything that silly.

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Museum collections cannot remain static, existing solely as mausoleums, or, in the case of the Smithsonian, as the "Nation's Attic." As a general rule, objects and specimens are accepted for Smithsonian collections only when there is good faith intention to accession and to maintain the material in perpetuity on behalf of the public. Responsible acquisition of objects and specimens is preceded by thoughtful review, evaluation, and, if necessary, disposal of existing collections.

Deaccessioning is the process used to record the removal of an accession from the collection. Deaccessions occur because, despite conservation efforts, some objects deteriorate beyond usefulness; others are found to be redundant; others do not relate to the mission of the museum and, therefore, are judged to be better placed elsewhere; and others are selected for research or public education. Methods of disposal include transfer, donation, exchange, repatriation, sale, and destruction. In some cases the purpose of the deaccession and the method of disposal are the same, i.e., lost or stolen, died, escaped, and inventory reconciliation.

The method of disposition is generally affected by the nature of the collection: natural history museums tend to favor exchanges with other educational institutions while art museums rely on the marketplace to acquire and dispose objects. Deaccessioning procedures are designed to insure thoughtful, well-documented consideration of each proposed disposition in the context of the best long-term interest of the museum, the general public, and the object or specimen.To relinquish physical custody, legal title, and management control of an object or specimen. Disposals are categorized by the method used to relinquish custody and title to an object or specimen.

Exchange
To dispose of an object in return for an object of equal value. If the values of the exchanged objects are unequal, a combination of disposal methods may apply.

Sale
To dispose of an object or specimen in return for payment of money or its equivalent.

posted 03-08-2007 08:38 PM               

quote:

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Originally posted by Adam S:
If any action were to be taken, it would have to be taken by NASA, and I have no doubt that they would act to recover the helmet were they to become convinced that such a treasure had escaped them...

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An old surplus dealer I knew told the story of how the government sold dozens of aircraft engines to him at a fraction of their purchase value. Some years later the government decided it needed the engines after all. They had to pay him market value for the engines, and he was a happy fellow indeed.

gikev deserves the fruits of his labor in tracing the history of this artifact and preserving it for the future. I have no doubt that some other flown artifacts have not been so fortunate and have become landfill or worse.

posted 03-08-2007 09:23 PM               

In response to gikev's previous post:

I wasn't implying that you meant to embarrass them, but rather that they might be embarrassed by their own mistake, had it been theirs to make. Doubtful, as they would tend to accept items from NASA as being what NASA described them to be. Why after all would The Smithsonian ask NASA a question like 'Are you sure that this item is really the one that flew on the mission?"

I also disagree with John's post which postulated that the Smithsonian might have decided that Gordon Cooper's actual Mercury helmet from the mission was something that they didn't need when it was offered to them by NASA. If your helmet is the one that flew, clearly the complete suit that NASA gave the Smithsonian had the wrong helmet on it and The Smithsonian would have had no reason at the time to question it's identity.

NASA did dispose of excess inventory in various ways from time to time, but I strongly doubt that any of the early (Mercury, Gemini and Apollo) suits, gloves, helmets and boots left NASA as part of any such sales.

I know for a fact that there are a few suits, boots, gloves, helmets and other assorted bits and pieces from the early NASA programs that did wind up in private hands, and the stories around some of them are quite interesting. I suspect that most of the artifacts in private hands, probably left NASA through the astronauts themselves. Some items were given by NASA to the military. Did the dealer who you bought the helmet from ever disclose how he happened to acquire it?

As to your statement:

"As for your idea about "trading" for something in the museum collection - I would be shocked and disappointed in any museum that would engage in anything that silly."

Clearly you have not had many dealings with museums.

Museums trade items all the time. Frequently they get items bequeathed to them that are similar to or duplicates of items already on display. In such cases they gladly trade items that are excess to their needs for items that they need for their exhibits.

In the case of the space-suit collection at the Smithsonian, they have far more (un-flown) suits that are not on display than are needed for their exhibitions, all of which take up space, and eat up budget dollars for preservation work that is in scarce supply. While the Smithsonian is part of the federal government, and while they probably have a bit more red tape and paperwork to go through than most museums to dispose of and acquire items, I'd be very surprised if they wouldn't do whatever was necessary to get such a priceless artifact into their collection if indeed your helmet is the one that flew the final Mercury mission.

posted 03-08-2007 09:30 PM               

quote:

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Originally posted by Adam S:
If it slipped out the back door so to speak, as many bits and pieces (including Grissom's suit) did, then I suspect they would still own it, and could simply confiscate it if they wanted to.

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posted 03-08-2007 09:42 PM               

quote:

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Originally posted by Adam S:
Why after all would the Smithsonian ask NASA a question like "Are you were sure that this item is really the one that flew on the mission?"

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The historians and curators who work for the National Air and Space Museum research the artifacts they receive carefully and would never just take anyone's word for it, so to speak. I experienced this first hand as I facilitated the donation of a spacesuit now in the NASM's collection. I will not go into details but the museum does indeed question the artifacts they receive, regardless the source. I doubt embarrassment has anything to do with any decision, or lack thereof. Its far more likely that more time and study is needed.

quote:

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NASA did dispose of excess inventory in various ways from time to time, but I strongly doubt that any of the early (Mercury, Gemini and Apollo) suits, gloves, helmets and boots left NASA as part of any such sales...

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quote:

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I suspect that most of the artifacts in private hands, probably left NASA through the astronauts themselves.

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posted 03-08-2007 10:26 PM               

quote:

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Originally posted by Adam S:
Surely museums question the provenance of items they acquire, but when NASA gave a "flown" space suit to the Smithsonian, I strongly doubt that anyone at the Smithsonian would have asked NASA "Are you sure you're giving us the right one?"

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posted 03-08-2007 11:36 PM               

quote:

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Originally posted by davidcwagner:
Does any Statute of Limitations apply? Just curious.

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posted 03-09-2007 04:35 AM               

quote:

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Originally posted by gikev:
Some how it seemed ridiculous to me to think that a national historic museum would do business with a little guy...

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posted 03-09-2007 12:27 PM               

quote:

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There is no statute of limitations on the theft of government property but as mentioned earlier, the burden of proof would lie with the government to prove that the artifact was stolen from their inventory...

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posted 03-09-2007 12:40 PM               

quote:

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Originally posted by Adam S:
I disagree with Mr. Pearlman's assessment above.

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posted 03-09-2007 01:04 PM               

Your home is robbed, and your wedding photo in a sterling silver frame is stolen.

The crook is caught with the framed photo in his possession.

Is it up to you to prove it was stolen, or is it up to the thief to prove that he came by it legally?

posted 03-09-2007 06:33 PM               

quote:

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Originally posted by Robert Pearlman:
There's no point in speculating; I will inquire with them tomorrow morning.

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posted 03-09-2007 11:31 PM               

The analogy to a criminal prosecution above is not valid. A civil suit to recover property is totally different. Criminal rules of procedure do not apply here.

Art looted by the Nazis in the 1940's is still being returned to the descendants of the rightful owners today, even though, in many cases, it may have changed hands many times in seemingly legitimate transactions since the original theft.

The fact that the current owner may have bought it in good faith from someone whom he assumed had valid title to the item is irrelevant.

Unless NASA sold or "gifted" the item to someone in a transaction for which records can be produced, then NASA still owns it.

posted 03-10-2007 12:15 AM               

quote:

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Originally posted by Adam S:
The analogy to a criminal prosecution above is not valid. A civil suit to recover property is totally different. Criminal rules of procedure do not apply here.

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Quoting the U.S. Attorney's Manual:

One of the principal responsibilities of the federal criminal law is the protection of government property. The property holdings of the United States, its departments and agencies are extensive and include both real and personal property in this country and abroad. In order for the Federal government to perform the wide range of duties assigned to it by law, it must have ready access to these properties and resources. Therefore it is very important that these properties be protected from any theft, misuse or misappropriation.

Supervisory authority for prosecutions involving most crimes against government property rests with the Office of Enforcement Operations of the Criminal Division.

The USAM includes commentary on the burden of proof:

...proof of government ownership of stolen property can rest entirely on circumstantial evidence

posted 03-10-2007 10:37 AM               

The history of the item since it left NASA is presumed to be a mystery here. Were a fight over it's ownership ever to come to a trial, counsel for the government in this case would depose the "dealer" who Gikev got it from in an attempt to discover who the dealer got it from, and he would then depose that person if he or she were still alive and could be found. This discovery process would continue as far back as possible.

In cases where so much time has passed since the item left the original owner's (NASA's) possession however, it's often the case that the entire provenance of the item cannot be factually established.

Were the government to confiscate the helmet, Gikev might not have any legal recourse against the dealer here as he has stated from the beginning that the dealer he bought it from claimed it to have been used in training only. The dealer would then be presumed to have acquired it in a "good faith" transaction with no suspicion that it had either been "stolen" or had simply "gone missing" under some mysterious circumstances the details of which are probably forever lost.

I've had recent personal experience with this process, in trying to establish the provenance of some hardware I had purchased about 20 years ago from the early days of the Gemini program. In this case, after speaking with Amanda Young at The Smithsonian, I approached NASA in an effort to find out if I had legal title to these items. The person at NASA whom Ms Young directed me to was extremely cooperative, and tried to find the records relating to the manner in which the items left NASA's possession. He was ultimately however unable to find any records pertaining to those items, and told me that the records relating to early hardware are unfortunately simply lost or incomplete in some cases.

From my dealings with these people, I can say with certainty that they are all very nice folks whose primary motivation is the preservation of the accurate history of our space program. When I first discussed the history of my Gemini items with Ms. Young's predecessor at The Smithsonian, Lillian Kozloski, she was very pleased just to know where the hardware I had purchased was, as the location of same was listed as being "unknown" in her rather complete records of all such hardware originally made for and used by NASA. When I originally acquired these Gemini items a part on one of them was broken. Ms Kozloski referred me to the director of one of their "affiliated" museums, The Kansas Cosmosphere, for repair. Fortunately for me, the folks in Kansas had acquired a stockpile of NOS (New Old Stock) spare parts from NASA pertaining to artifacts from that era, and they graciously replaced the broken piece for me with an authentic new one, only charging me a modest fee for the time & labor involved, & nothing for the piece itself.