NASA still holds onto about 85% of the moon rocks collected by astronauts during the Apollo program.
Apollo Moon Rocks are NASA and US government property which cannot be sold or exchanged to private citizens. Lunar meteorites are "Moon Rocks" just the same as the Apollo samples, except for one major detail : lunar meteorites were delivered to Earth by Mother Nature, and not astronauts who are government employees.
More than 370 lunar meteorites have been collected on Earth, representing more than 30 different meteorite finds (no falls), with a total mass of over 190 kilograms (420 lb).
NASA may be the only organization that's currently in the market for buying moon rocks from private companies, but the space agency allowed the companies to name their price. Lunar Outpost pledged to sell their sample for just $1, by far the smallest bid. Both iSpace companies plan to sell their samples for $5,000.
At $4.28 million per gram, the lunar regolith carries a higher price than any mineral on earth, despite it likely being composed of such commonplace elements as oxygen, iron, silica and calcium.
It is illegal to own or possess any lunar material brought back from the Apollo program, including those samples gifted to the states and other nations.
While it is illegal for private collectors to own Apollo return samples, it is entirely legal to buy lunar meteorites.
In the 1970s, NASA recognized that technologies of the future would be able to unveil fresh information about our lunar neighbor, so the agency saved a portion of the rocks for future scientists to analyze.
Since those rocks, (which, precisely, weighed 101 grams), were valued at $21 million, that extrapolates to $94 million per pound. Consequently, the 842 pounds owned by the JSC would, according to NASA, be worth approximately $80 billion.
"The mare constitutes around 15% of the lunar surface, making the total value of the moon... $4 quadrillion." Thinking about it another way, that much He-3 could theoretically supply U.S. electricity demand for 80,000 years.
On July 13th 2002, 25-year-old NASA trainee, Thad Roberts and his accomplices broke into the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, and stole a safe full of priceless moon rocks collected from the Apollo lunar missions over the years.
Of the 270 Apollo 11 Moon rocks and the Apollo 17 Goodwill Moon Rocks that were given to the nations of the world by the Nixon Administration, approximately 180 are unaccounted for. Many of these rocks that are accounted for have been locked away in storage for decades.
“China has also become the third country to retrieve lunar samples and discover new lunar minerals after the US and Russia,” he said.
The Outer Space Treaty means therefore that - no matter whose national flags are planted on the lunar surface - no nation can 'own' the Moon.
Mars belongs to everybody, according to the Outer Space Treaty, which the United States signed back in 1967. The treaty says nobody can own a celestial body.
In the early days of the legal market, some offerings would sell for up to $1,400 an ounce. Today, moon rocks cost a little more than your top-shelf flower, around $25-35 a gram depending on where you live and the quality of the product.
Lunar meteorites are exceedingly rare: only around 60 have been identified. And they don't just interest collectors. Space scientists are also keen to get hold of them, because they hold clues to what the rock is like on parts of the moon beyond the areas explored by the Apollo and robotic landers.
A large chunk of Martian rock, worth an estimated $30,000 to $50,000, holds bubbles of the planet's atmosphere trapped inside. According to Christie's, there are a dozen samples from the moon and Mars, and another dozen previously housed by famous museums around the world.
Between 1969 and 1972 six Apollo missions brought back 382 kilograms (842 pounds) of lunar rocks, core samples, pebbles, sand and dust from the lunar surface. The six space flights returned 2200 separate samples from six different exploration sites on the Moon.
It's a milestone for China's lunar exploration project. The lander carries cameras for observations of the terrain and a low-frequency spectrometer to study solar bursts. The rover has a panoramic camera, a spectrometer for identifying surface materials, and a ground-penetrating radar to probe subsurface structures.
Apollo 11 carried the first geologic samples from the Moon back to Earth. In all, astronauts collected 21.6 kilograms of material, including 50 rocks, samples of the fine-grained lunar regolith (or "soil"), and two core tubes that included material from up to 13 centimeters below the Moon's surface.
Presidential Moonrock 3.5g XJ-13 $70 - Los Angeles Cannabis Dispensaries | MMD Shops.
A prime specimen will easily fetch $50/gram while rare examples of lunar and Martian meteorites may sell for $1,000/gram or more — almost forty times the current price of gold!
Short answer: you can't. No one can. The relevant provision of the OST is Article II which states: “Outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means.”
China Plans Three Moon-Mining Missions After Finding a Potential New Source of Energy. The Chinese discovery of a phosphate mineral in columnar crystal has the nation clamoring for more of the Moon. A 2020 mission brought back minerals to China, leading to the discovery of a phosphate mineral now named Changesite-(Y).