An interesting auction win with a unique delivery problem

[sensei]

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/31/scien ... 1moon.html

Interesting NYT article: in essence a fellow attended a Sotheby's auction of memorabilia from the US/Soviet Space Race and, for $68 K plus change, won the Russian Lunokhod 2, one of the very first robotic explorers of the lunar landscape. A great win and a relatively reasonable winning bid, except for one thing.

The Lunokhod 2 is parked on the surface of the moon.

The fellow now owns it, but has no way of visiting it or bringing it home to install in a museum or even in his poolside patio to show to fellow aerospace curio collectors.

Happily, the NYT reports, the orbiting Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has taken a photo of the region that is detailed enough so that the owner can see that his Lunokhod 2 is still there and has not been stripped or towed away by Zeta Reticulan teenage delinquents since the time it broke down and stopped sending data back to earth. But he's still working on a way to have a closer look at his rare and highly significant auction win.

Heh. Sure makes the wait for YJ wins seem a little more tolerable.

[Rik1138]

Hmm, that seems like a tough thing to actually buy... I think it'd be more fair to say the first person to _retrieve_ it gets to keep it.

[Massacrist Manslayer]

Good luck for Mr. Garriott an finding a way to the moon.

[cutiebunny]

But he's still working on a way to have a closer look at his rare and highly significant auction win.

Has he heard of Virgin Galactic? For a mere 200K(a triffle, in his world), he can head into space for 5 minutes and be that much closer to his auction win.