Woman says Neil Armstrong gave her moon dust. She's suing NASA to keep it.

[corbe]

Woman says Neil Armstrong gave her moon dust. She's suing NASA to keep it.

Laura Cicco claims the moonwalker gave her the memento when she was a child.

by Denise Chow / Jun.14.2018 / 11:15 AM ET / Updated 11:47 AM ET



Laura Cicco is suing NASA so she can keep what she says is a vial of moon dust that Neil Armstrong gave her.Courtesy of U.S. District Court

In a case that mixes nostalgia with serious questions about who is allowed to own materials brought back from space, a Tennessee woman is suing NASA to maintain possession of what she says is a vial of moon dust that astronaut Neil Armstrong gave her when she was 10 years old.

In her lawsuit filed in federal court last week, Laura Cicco says Armstrong, the first human to walk on the moon, gave her the vial in the 1970s along with a handwritten note: “To Laura Ann Murray — Best of Luck — Neil Armstrong Apollo 11.”

Cicco, then named Laura Murray, claims she received the memento while living with her family in Cincinnati. She maintains that Armstrong, who taught aerospace engineering at the University of Cincinnati at the time, had been a friend of her late father. Armstrong died in 2012.

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https://www.nbcnews.com/mach/science/woman-says-neil-armstrong-gave-her-moon-dust-she-s-ncna883116

[Joe Wooten]

Well, the taxpayers did foot the bill to get that little vial of dust.......

[Elderberry]

“Unless you call Neil Armstrong a thief,” he added, “he had the authority to own it and give it to people. I don’t think Neil Armstrong was a thief.”