A new report by NASA said that "mismanagement" led to the loss of a set of valuable souvenirs obtained during flights to its spacecraft as well as spacecraft.
The "valuable souvenirs" contained a bag of moon soil and space controllers, as well as a pilot on the moon, the site said.
According to a new report from NASA's Office of the Inspector-General, which investigated how the space agency oversaw its historic properties in recent decades.
The procedures showed that some unique pieces of space shuttle property had been misplaced or taken by former staff.
NASA has two types of historical property, which must be taken into account: "Actual property such as buildings and test sites, some of which are used to support existing missions."
The second type is "personal possessions such as space suits and other tools, many of which are no longer needed but have a rich history."
The Inspector General of the Agency noted that most of the actual properties of the space agency were more than 40 years old and needed repair, but the report showed a "shameful" aspect of NASA's management of personal property preservation, especially historical memorabilia that are not used today.
In 2014, one historian noticed what looked like an old lunar vehicle in the backyard of a neighbor.
The owner of the vehicle said he was interested in returning it to the agency, but after 4 months of procrastination by NASA, the owner sold the vehicle to a scrap auction.
