Former First Lady Melania Trump has posted a collection of Apollo 11-themed NFTs that may violate NASA policies.
The NFTs feature one of the Apollo program’s most popular photos – the 1969 image of astronaut Buzz Aldrin walking on the moon’s surface taken by Apollo 11 commander Neil Armstrong, which is reflected with the lunar lander in Aldrin’s visor.
The image is seen on a rotating iPod-shaped object textured like the surface of the moon with Armstrong misquoted exclamation: “One small step for man, one giant leap for humanity”.
THE Man on the Moon NFTs are sold for $75 each and the list on a website called USA Memorabilia shows 479 editions remaining. It was not immediately clear how many were originally minted. They are marked as a “limited edition collectible” which has built-in “special audio” that will unlock after purchase.
THE Man on the Moon NFT courtesy of Melania Trump. Courtesy of USA Memorabilia
NASA images are generally not copyrighted as they are produced by a federal agency. Beyond that, NASA also makes its images available to the public for “educational or informational purposes.”
However, NASA has a document outlining the agency’s regulations for merchandising requests, noting that “strict laws and regulations” govern how the NASA brand and imagery can be used by companies.
“NASA does not approve any merchandising requests involving non-fungible tokens (NFTs) because they are not consistent with the categories of products the agency is authorized to market,” the document states.
“Furthermore, as stated in NASA’s Media Usage Guidelines, NASA does not wish its images to be used in connection with NFTs.”
The potential consequences of violating NASA guidelines weren’t immediately clear, though that didn’t stop entities like Anicorn Watches from posting. a NASA-branded NFT in 2021, the one designed by Richard Danne, who created the beloved “worm” logo.
USA Memorabilia does not list Trump’s property or name anywhere on the site, but a Whois lookup shows that any identifying information about ownership of the domain has been “redacted for privacy reasons”. However, Melania Trump claimed the NFTs during a interview with Fox News.
The former first lady started selling NFTs in December 2021, inaugurating its own digital platform with the sale of an NFT collection of watercolor portraits created by French artist Marc-Antoine Coulon. The sale was so bad that Trump allegedly bought one of his own NFT.
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