As a child, Nancy Lee Carlson watched in fascination as the astronauts of Apollo 11 bounced across the surface of the moon, collecting rocks to bring back to earth. 
 
 She never dreamed she would come to possess her own piece of the lunar surface, her lawyer said. But after winning a landmark legal battle, Carlson returned home to the Chicago suburbs Tuesday, the proud owner of a one-of-a-kind bag of moon dust. 
 
 Carlson had purchased the bag in 2015 for $995 when it was put up for sale in an online government auction because of a bureaucratic mix-up. But when the Inverness woman sent the artifact to NASA to test it — and officials there found it contained the unique hallmarks of moon dust — they decided they would not return it. 
 
 That prompted a legal battle that ended with a federal judge ordering the space agency to return what government attorneys described as a priceless national treasure. 
 
 "It's what every collector wants," said Carlson's attorney, Christopher McHugh. "You want to find the thing that's super special." 
 
 A priceless bag of moon dust collected during the Apollo 11 mission has been returned to a Chicago-area woman after she won a landmark legal victory against NASA. 
 
 The white bag itself appears unremarkable, about the size of a dinner plate, with a zipper and a tear in it. 
 
 But the bag is made of beta cloth, a fireproof silica fiber similar to the material used in space suits. The container was used on the first manned mission to the moon in 1969, NASA reported, as the outer decontamination bag to store the first lunar samples collected on the mission by astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin. 
 
 Government attorneys argued that the bag rightfully belonged to NASA, and that Carlson only hoped to make a "windfall profit" from selling it. 
 
 NASA issued a statement that read in part: "This artifact was never meant to be owned by an individual. ... We believe (it) belongs to the American people and should be on display for the public, which is where it was before all of these unfortunate events occurred." 
 
 Indeed, how Carlson came to possess the celestial souvenir is a space odyssey in its own right. 
 
 Previously, the government had seized the bag in a criminal case against Max Ary, the former president of a space museum in Kansas. He was convicted in 2006 of theft for selling objects from the museum, court records show. 
 
 While investigating Ary, authorities learned the moon bag had been auctioned off for $24,150 and seized it from its purchaser. But because of a mix-up with another bag that did not contain moon dust, no NASA official at the time was aware of the historical importance of the artifact. The bag containing the lunar dust went to the U.S. Marshals Service, and was put up for auction at forfeiture.gov, to obtain restitution in the criminal case. 
 
 The initial auction asked for a beginning offer of at least $20,000, but nobody bid on it. When Carlson, a corporate attorney and avid collector of space objects, saw the bag at auction again in February 2015, she was the high bidder. 
 
 After receiving the bag in the mail, Carlson stored it in her bedroom closet. She tried to verify its authenticity by contacting officials at the Field Museum in Chicago, who referred her to Johnson Space Center in Houston. She contacted the curator of lunar samples there, and sent him the bag for testing. 
 
 There, in April of last year, NASA officials verified that the dust in the bag was in fact from the moon and had become embedded into the fabric of the bag. Moon dust is not like its earthly counterpart, in part because there is no water and little atmosphere to erode it, so it's full of pointy microscopic particles that stick to just about anything with which they come in contact. 
 
 After a yearlong court battle, a federal judge on Friday ordered NASA officials to hand over the bag. The exchange took place Monday at the space center in Houston, and Carlson hired a security firm to take charge of the bag, rather than keeping it in her house. 
 
 Noting the "amazing technical achievements, skill and courage" that NASA workers showed in obtaining the objects, U.S. District Judge J. Thomas Marten previously had urged Carlson and the government to amicably resolve the dispute to recognize both their legitimate interests. 
 
 McHugh said Carlson would consider allowing the bag to be displayed publicly, and she is expected to make an announcement by the end of the week. 
 
 It marks the only known case in which a private citizen has won ownership of a lunar object that the government had previously sold, apparently by mistake, attorneys involved said. 
 
 But the moon dust bag is just one of at least hundreds of lunar objects that have been become part of a pricey, worldwide black market. 
 
 In fact, one of the attorneys on the case, Joseph Gutheinz, is a former special investigator for NASA who, in all other cases, has argued that privately owned lunar objects should be returned to the space agency. 
 
 He estimates that over time, the U.S. government has given away about 270 moon rocks to foreign nations and dignitaries as well as about 100 to the states. Many ended up on the black market, and he has helped recover them for the government through an undercover sting and other investigations. But there are still about 158 lunar objects unaccounted for, he said. 
 
 The only other legitimate sale of lunar material that Gutheinz knew of was the 1993 sale of moon rocks from an unmanned Russian space mission, for $442,500. 
 
 The case of the moon dust bag comes at a time of renewed interest in space exploration. President Donald Trump was expected to announce a return to human space missions Tuesday, and the private company SpaceX announced this week that it hopes to bring tourists to orbit the moon next year. 
 
 "Millions of people are intrigued by space around the world," Gutheinz said. "(Carlson) is one of them. She loves space. And she had the gumption not to back down." 
 
 rmccoppin@chicagotribune.com 
 
 Twitter @RobertMcCoppin ||||| A lunar sample bag used to protect the first moon rocks collected on the moon will be turned over by NASA to an Illinois woman who won the bag at a disputed auction. (Gaston & Sheehan Auctioneers) 
 
 Feb. 25, 2017 
 
 — NASA, following a judge's order, will turn over an Apollo 11 moon rock bag to the Illinois woman who bought the artifact at a disputed auction. 
 
 
 
 Judge Vanessa Gilmore, in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas, ruled on Friday (Feb. 24) that Nancy Lee Carlson's property was "illegally seized" by the space agency. Gilmore ordered that the Apollo 11 lunar sample bag be "produced and handed over" to Carlson at NASA's Johnson Space Center on Monday (Feb. 27). 
 
 
 
 The finding brings to an end a nearly two-year dispute that landed the moon rock bag at the center of multiple lawsuits in two states. 
 
 
 
 The zippered cloth pouch, which was labeled in bold black letters "Lunar Sample Return," was used on July 20, 1969, as an "outer decontamination bag" to protect the first moon rocks retrieved from the surface of the moon as they were delivered to Earth by Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 NASA will return the lunar sample return bag to Nancy Lee Carlson at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. (NASA) 
 
 Carlson purchased the bag for $995 in February 2015, at a Texas auction held on behalf of the U.S. Marshals Service. The bag was sold along with the other forfeited property of a museum curator in Kansas to pay restitution after he was convicted of stealing and selling museum and government- owned space artifacts. 
 
 
 
 Due to an inventory error, the bag was not identified as still belonging to NASA, or that it had been flown on Apollo 11, at the time it was sold. Carlson later sent the artifact to the Johnson Space Center to be inspected. 
 
 
 
 NASA verified the presence of moon dust and established that the bag had been used on the first moon landing. But without a record of it being released from federal property, the space agency withheld returning the artifact to Carlson and contacted the U.S. Justice Department to reverse the improper forfeiture. 
 
 
 
 U.S. law directs that in the case of federal forfeitures, the government is required to notify any party that "reasonably appears to be a potential claimant with standing to contest the forfeiture." As the bag's significance wasn't recognized at the time though, NASA was not made aware that it was being forfeited and sold. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Apollo 11 moon rock collected by Neil Armstrong. (collectSPACE) 
 
 In December 2016, a U.S. District Court in Kansas ordered that the lunar sample return bag belonged to Carlson. The judge said the government failed to cite examples where a court had ordered the invalidation of a sale to a "bona fide purchaser after a final order of forfeiture." 
 
 
 
 Noting NASA was a "victim in this case, not a wrongdoer," the Kansas judge wrote in his ruling that he hoped Carlson and the space agency could "amicably resolve the dispute in a way that recognizes both of their legitimate interests." 
 
 
 
 The government did not appeal the Kansas judge's ruling, but argued before the Texas court that the bag should not be returned to Carlson. Federal attorneys cited a 2012 law that granted Apollo-era astronauts title to their mementos but specifically excluded owning lunar rocks or other lunar material. 
 
 
 
 If the astronauts cannot possess lunar material, argued the government, then "certainly a non-astronaut like [Carlson] cannot possess it." 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 The Apollo lunar sample bag protected the moon rocks from being contaminated. (Gaston & Sheehan Auctioneers) 
 
 Instead, the U.S. attorneys offered to compensate Carlson the $995 that she paid for the lunar sample return bag, or if disputed, an amount based on an expert appraisal. 
 
 
 
 Judge Gilmore rejected that argument and ordered that the Apollo 11 bag be returned to Carlson on Monday. 
 
 
 
 "NASA is obviously disappointed by the decision of the court," said NASA spokesman William Jeffs in a statement provided to the Houston Chronicle. "This artifact was never meant to be owned by an individual." 
 
 
 
 NASA officials have appealed to Carlson to publicly exhibit the bag, reported the Chronicle. Carlson's lawyer said that she would consider the request, but wants NASA to return the moon rock bag first.
– One small inventory error has led to a giant payday for Illinois woman Nancy Lee Carlson. A moon dust collection bag that Carlson bought for just $995 in an online government auction in 2015 sold for $1.8 million at a Sotheby's auction in New York Thursday, the BBC reports. The bag, marked "Lunar Sample Bag," was used by Neil Armstrong to collect moon dust during the Apollo 11 mission in 1969 and still contains small rocks and traces of lunar dust, the AP reports. The buyer declined to be identified. The bag is believed to be the only artifact from the Apollo 11 mission in private hands. It was among items that the FBI seized from the home of Max Ary, the former director of a Kansas space museum, in 2003. NASA tried to get the bag back when it realized it had been misidentified and sold, but a federal judge ruled in Carlson's favor. She plans to use some of the proceeds to set up a scholarship at Northern Michigan University. The bag was sold among 180 lots Sotheby's auctioned off to mark the 48th anniversary of the first moon landing. Other items included the Apollo 13 flight plan, which sold for $275,000.