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Neil Armstrong's customs form for moon rocks (2016)

magazine.uc.edu

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Re: Neil Armstrong's customs form for moon rocks (2016)

#171

Post by dotancohen »

magicalhippo wrote: post #113
Lovesong wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They can, the problem is that if you declare this as different parts then you will have to pay taxes accordingly to the chosen HSCode for each one in the declaration. If you search for the HSCODE you will find that offshore oil and natural gas drilling and production platforms have their own, 8431434000, which means if you declare only this one you will pay no taxes.

In my experience they're also a bit particular about declaring things as they are on the border. An oil platform getting towed into place is one piece, not an IKEA kit or similar. That said, could very well be the local customs officer was just totally unprepared and this was the solution they came up with on the spot. I've seen other cases where different companies have gotten directly contradictory instructions fro…

  > An oil platform getting towed into place is one piece, not an IKEA kit or similar.
They could call it the Integrated Key Energy Anchor.

Re: Neil Armstrong's customs form for moon rocks (2016)

#172

Post by burnt-resistor »

tempodox wrote: post #22
yardie wrote: post #20

I did a 1100m passage from Puerto Rico to Miami. Anchored in the Bahamas bank but didn't step on land. And when we arrived in the US we weren't required to clear in since our last port of departure was PR. Pretty sure they were tracking us by drone, blimp, AIS, and radar the entire way because they weren't suspicious enough compared to my previous experiences. Curious why Apollo 11 would have to clear customs since t…

They could have smuggled moonshine.

Freshly bottled from the edge of the dark side where it's sweetest.

Re: Neil Armstrong's customs form for moon rocks (2016)

#173

Post by burnt-resistor »

Ylpertnodi wrote: post #158
hiccuphippo wrote: post #139

There's a funny story about how any new territory falls under the jurisdiction of the dioceses from which the expedition departed, so the bishop of Orlando is the bishop of the moon.

My god's bigger than your god.

Mine does genocide better. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Short_Account_of_the_Destruc...

Re: Neil Armstrong's customs form for moon rocks (2016)

#174

Post by xenadu02 »

I-M-S wrote: post #118
ortusdux wrote: post #26

Makes me think of the Apollo insurance covers: "The Apollo insurance covers are autographed postal covers signed by the astronaut crews prior to their mission. The primary motivation behind this action was the refusal of life insurance companies to provide coverage for the astronauts. Consequently, the astronauts devised a strategy involving the signing of hundreds of postal covers. These were to be left behind for t…

A country that sends men to the Moon but isn't able to guarantee the wellbeing of their families shouldn't be able to send men to the Moon.

It wasn't that they didn't have life insurance at all. It was that they couldn't increase their life insurance on the private market either due to their line of work or "Act of God"-style clauses. Or at least they thought that to be the case. This is similar to how some life insurance policies exclude death while acting as a pilot in general aviation.

AFAIK all of them were former military and obviously current government employees so their families would have been entitled to any military life insurance they purchased as well as any pension benefits due (military and federal civilian). I can't give you the exact amounts because it has changed over the years and also depends on how many years of military and/or civilian service you had.

But generally all government employees covered under the retirement plan have an annuity or monthly survivor benefit available that is some portion of their final salary at death or their average salary whichever was higher. Often there is a fixed adder as well (basic death benefit adder right now is $41,000 per year so your spouse would get 50% of your final salary plus $41k).

In addition the federal plan (and social security) pays monthly for surviving children until they reach age 18. The federal plan is a bit nicer in that it pays until 18 or 22 if you are a full time student. Both pay for life if the child is disabled (though the government definition of disabled is rather strict).

All of this is just survivor benefits. Once your surviving spouse retires they are entitled to the pension payments you would have received.

Re: Neil Armstrong's customs form for moon rocks (2016)

#175

Post by jki275 »

dotancohen wrote: post #170
jki275 wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US government does issue life insurance for all military personnel. It's a nominal cost (20 bucks a month IIRC) for something like 400k of coverage. It's been around since 1914[1]. As far as I know all of the astronauts were military at that time, so they probably would have been covered by this program. There could be any number of nuances I'm not aware of though. [1] https://benefits.va.gov/benefits/infographic…

I don't know about any of the other Apollo astronauts, and I wasn't around at the time, but I do remember once reading that a big deal was made about Neil Armstrong being a civilian when he landed on the moon.

Wikipedia at least says you're right -- he was a Naval Aviator and test pilot, but must have left the service when he went to NASA.

Re: Neil Armstrong's customs form for moon rocks (2016)

#176

Post by jrockway »

stinkbeetle wrote: post #163
dmix wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They insisted on building a three-week quarantine facility with slivers of lunar samples There was a ton of money flowing in for space and it was the big new thing of the future. Makes sense other agencies would try to insert themselves and try to seem relevant to the new popular thing in the news and latch themselves onto any future spending/authority.

Yep, government bureaucracy has always been horribly corrupt, incompetent, and self-serving, unfortunately.

I can kind of see why someone whose job it is to quarantine soil samples from other places on Earth would want to quarantine soil samples from another planet. Sort of.

Re: Neil Armstrong's customs form for moon rocks (2016)

#177

Post by jrockway »

rogerrogerr wrote: post #168
tsimionescu wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A quarantine is never for the sake of those you quarantine, it's for the sake of the public, by definition.

Except after the 2019 strain of coronavirus was identified, then we turned it all upside down and said “stay home, stay safe” as loud as possible for two years straight.

I mean, if people had quarantined then we wouldn't have had a pandemic.

Re: Neil Armstrong's customs form for moon rocks (2016)

#178

Post by zaps »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #98
soneil wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the whole point of the parent comment - you don't trigger customs requirements by leaving and re-entering the country. You trigger them by entering from another country. for example - you don't need a passport to travel from the US mainland to Hawaii. It doesn't matter that the aircraft cross international waters, it matters what country you were in last.

You are entering from "another country" if you are coming from the Moon. For this purpose "country" has to be interpret as stepping on any land outside of the US.

THE MOON BELONGS TO AMERICA

Re: Neil Armstrong's customs form for moon rocks (2016)

#179

Post by tsimionescu »

rogerrogerr wrote: post #168
tsimionescu wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A quarantine is never for the sake of those you quarantine, it's for the sake of the public, by definition.

Except after the 2019 strain of coronavirus was identified, then we turned it all upside down and said “stay home, stay safe” as loud as possible for two years straight.

"Social distancing" was not quarantine. It was a recommendation to reduce the frequency of meeting with others, but it wasn't strictly enforced: you were allowed to go out and do things, but in limited capacity. And this was both for your own sake to some extent, and for the sake of everyone else to some extent - and it was explicitly presented as such, at least in more in-depth discussions. It wasn't just "stay home, stay safe", but "stay home, keep yourself safe, keep others safe". Especially since the main goal has always been to avoid overwhelming hospitals with serious cases, since the most disastrous death rated were seen in areas where this happened, at the start of the pandemic (in Wuhan, in the Milan/Bergamo area, in Iran).

You still had actual quarantines during the pandemic - anyone who had a positive test and anyone who had been in direct contact with them for the last X days, were often strictly forced to stay either at home or in isolated hospital rooms. This was quite explicitly not for their own sake, but to keep the public at large safe from them.

Re: Neil Armstrong's customs form for moon rocks (2016)

#180

Post by mytailorisrich »

9rx wrote: post #129
mytailorisrich wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are entering from "another country" if you are coming from the Moon. For this purpose "country" has to be interpret as stepping on any land outside of the US.

> For this purpose "country" has to be interpret as stepping on any land outside of the US. "Land" is legally (and generally) defined as pertaining to planet earth. In this case the crew did not step on any land outside of the US. The moon does not have land.

I wrote in general and generic terms. Apollo 11 demonstrated that one can "set foot" on the Moon. So don't call it 'land' if that creates issues with existing laws and treaties on property rights but the point remains.
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