An Ohio seller is trying to auction on the Internet a heat shield believed to be from the exploded Space Shuttle Challenger, an apparent violation of federal law.
The eBay auction listing went up Thursday with a minimum bid of $199 and was slated to end November 7. As of mid-day Monday, four offers had been made to the seller with the highest bid at $255.
The seller, identified only by an e-mail address, purports to have been part of the U.S. Coast Guard wreckage recovery crew in 1986. Claiming to have been on the first ship to arrive at the crash scene, the seller is said to have a black heat shield, "measuring 6" x 6" x 2.5. It is intact but has some of the black outer shell broken away."
The sale was billed to include 40 pictures of the recovery effort taken by the seller and a copy of a letter of commendation from a Coast Guard commander for the crews part in the recovery.
NASA plans to see if the item, possibly a thermal tile, is authentic, and if it is, to reclaim it. The agencys general counsel is looking into the claim but had yet to take any action, spokesman Brian Dunbar said Monday.
"Challenger, like all our spacecraft past or present, is a property of the federal government," Dunbar said.
In rare cases, NASA turns over ownership of its spacecraft, as it did with the Liberty Bell capsule now owned by Discovery Communications. But that is not the case with Challenger.
"We have never ceded any claim with Challenger and have made it known over the past 13 years that all elements of Challenger are still the property of NASA and the U.S. government," Dunbar said.
NASA wants to keep Challenger wreckage, much of which remains in the ocean off Florida, in case it is needed for future investigations and also out of respect for the seven astronauts whose lost their lives on January 28, 1986, when the orbiter exploded 73 seconds after lift-off.
As of mid-day Monday, NASA had not contacted eBay and was working with its legal advisors on how to proceed.
eBay spokesman Kevin Pursglove said it had taken no action as yet against the seller and that it was NASAs responsibility to notify eBay of any violation, at which point the online auction site would fully cooperate with law enforcement.
Sellers on eBay must agree not to auction illegal items before becoming members.
"If the individual selling this heat shield is doing so illegally, then we would work with NASA to get their understanding of what law is being broken," Pursglove said.
The seller and bidders then would be notified and told that the auction would be closed down.
Customer support staffers at eBay periodically search the site for illegal items but the organization doesnt generally monitor the types of items sold on the site. About 350,000 items are posted to the popular online auction site daily.
The only action eBay would take against sellers who violate its policies would be to suspend their activity temporarily or permanently a move that could easily be circumvented by signing up via a different e-mail address.
"Nothing in the retail or Internet sphere is foolproof," Pursglove said.
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