The bill was offered by Science, Space and Technology Committee Chairman Ralph Hall (R-Texas), ranking member Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-Texas) and 17 other members from both parties. In a “dear colleague” letter seeking support for the bill, Hall and Johnson said that under NASA’s recent initiative, some astronauts might have to pay reparations if they cannot produce these items.
{mosads}”From the beginning of our nation’s space program through the Apollo era, NASA astronauts were permitted to retain mementos from their spaceflights,” they wrote. “Items ranging from personal logs, checklists, test articles used in training, to Lunar Module hardwired that otherwise would have been destroyed had it not been salvaged, were routinely allowed to remain in the possession of the individual astronauts.”
Hall’s office added that many of these items have been in the possession of NASA astronauts for decades, and in some cases have been given as gifts or donated to charities, making it difficult or impossible to take back.
Under the bill, H.R. 4158, astronauts could keep “any expendable item utilized in missions for the Mercury, Gemini or Apollo programs through the completion of the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project not expressly required” to be returned to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
These artifacts include personal logs, checklists, flight manuals and disposable flight hardware. Unfortunately for the astronauts, these artifacts do not include lunar rocks or other lunar material; some of these rocks have been valued in the millions of dollars.
— This story was updated at 1:28 p.m.