May 18 1984
From The Space Library
At a ceremony today in Washington, D.C., NASA transferred owner-ship of Viking Lander 1, which was on the planet Mars, to the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum. It was the first time a museum would own an object located on another planet. The transfer also included loan of the official Viking Lander plaque, which renamed the lander the Thomas A. Mutch Memorial Station in memory of the Viking landing imaging team leader and NASA associate administrator for space science who had died in a climbing accident in the Himalayas in 1980. NASA retained reclaimant rights to the lander for scientific purposes. (NASA Release 84-58; NY Times, May 3184, A-19)
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