Lecture: The Legal Battle Over Apollo 11 Samples

Thursday, Nov. 7, 2019

Time:

Cost: Free and open to the public


Location:

Rhatigan Student Center

1845 Fairmount
Wichita, KS 67260

Event Contact

James Schwartz
Email: james.schwartz@wichita.edu

Location: Rhatigan Student Center, Room 319

The Wichita Space Initiative welcomes lawyer Christopher McHugh, who will speak about a legal case involving samples from the Apollo 11 Moon landing.

In 1969, the United States met the impossible challenge leveled by President John. F. Kennedy eight years earlier, to land a man on the moon and return him safely to earth. The heroism of the moment culminated in Neil Armstrong’s collection of the first lunar rocks into the Apollo 11 Lunar Sample Contingency bag. Embodying the self-sacrifice, courage, ingenuity and fortitude of an entire nation, the Lunar Contingency bag was the ultimate trophy for the winner of the space race. It was like the Lombardi trophy, the Stanley Cup and every Olympic Gold Medal, all rolled up into one and multiplied by a thousand ... and NASA lost it! This is the story of the Chicago woman who found it almost 50 years later, and her battle with NASA over a national treasure.

Chris McHugh is a litigation attorney at Joseph Hollander & Craft in Kansas City. He represents clients all over the country in all types of litigation matters, from criminal cases to $100 million business disputes. Chris was born and raised in Wichita. He graduated from WSU in 1997 and is still involved on campus as a member of the WSU Cohen Honors College Advisory Board. 

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