Space/Science — HabitableZone

Space/Science » in reply to Re: Humans don't work that way . . .

Re: Humans don't work that way . . .

<<As for owning a piece of the lunar rock, when I get there I’ll claim squatter’s rights

"Hmm, Dan, nowadays moonrocks or Mars rocks have a great value, but that's just nowadays.
Strangely, more Mars meteorites are found on Earth than Moon meteorites, inspite of the much bigger distance.
Anyway, I remember going to a star party in 1985 near Cypress Gardens in Florida (right after the launch of STS61A-Spacelab D1 with Ockels on board) and some of the attendees were selling small meteorites. Well, frankly, I wasn't really interested. After having touched a moonrock brought back from an Apollo expedition (at the NASM) or having touched a really big meteorite at the Natural History Museum at Washington DC too, I lost the need to get one for home.
Scientists want them for scientific reasons but most of all the others want them for speculative reasons, just like buying a Van Gogh.
And once there are tons coming back, well...no interest"

Moon rock's value would depend on how they were marketed. 100s of tons even 1000s of tons is still rare (as compared to say gold). And as you say, there seems to be a lack of Lunar meteorites- they should be more common. I would give a wild guess, that the reason is we simply don't have the knowledge to distinquish between an earth rock and a lunar rock, and/or an asteriod rock and a Moon rock. Once more rocks are brought back from the Moon, it could be possible to gain this knowledge and be able to find far more lunar meteorites. And by finding lots of lunar meteorites this would certainly lower their value. But lunar rocks brought back from the Moon could be a significantly different item. The rocks could be associated with the project that brought them back. If project is "liked", then rocks would get the same kind of value, as things like the original Babe Ruth baseball cards- and having lots fresh newly minted Babe Ruth cards does not diminish the value of the original (probably, if anything slightly improves the value).
I think we will continue to have people who value collectibles, so long as people value "memories of the past"- a very human quality (though it's *possible* to "evolve beyond this", maybe).

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