The unidentified bag was in a box at Johnson Space Center in Houston. According to the Sotheby auctioneer, the bag was bought by a person who did not want to be named publicly. The person who buys the bag offers a bid bid by phone.
The auctioneer said that the bag is expected to sell between US $ 2 million and US $ 4 million.
Bags measuring 30 x 22 cm or approximately 8.5 inches has a label in his bag with the words 'Lunar Sample Return'. It is not known more clearly about the bag for decades back since Neil Armstrong and the Apollo 11 crew returned to earth in July 1969.
After disappearing from the Johnson Center, the item was found in the garage of the manager of a Kansas museum, Max Ary, who was convicted of his theft in 2014, according to court records.
The bag was seized by the US Marshals Service and installed it for auction three times, but the bag did not attract the bidders until it was purchased in 2015 for $ 995 by Chicago lawyer Nancy Lee Carlson.
He sent the bag to NASA to get authentication, and when the tests showed that it was used by Neil Armstrong and still has a moon dust trail in it. The US space agency decided to keep it.
However, Carlson succeeded in suing NASA for returning the bag, and the attention created by his legal challenge sparked many questions from potential buyers, according to Sotheby. It made Carlson decide to auction off the bag again.
There is one group that criticizes the decision to sell the bag which is a piece of space history.
"The bag is in the museum, so the whole world can share and celebrate the achievement of the universal man it represents," said Michelle Hanlon co-founder of For All Moonkind, a nonprofit set up to persuade the United Nations to implement measures to preserve and protect The six landing sites of Apollo on the moon. So quoted from Mirror.
