Posted on 06/14/2006 5:58:12 PM PDT by Oshkalaboomboom
Confederate flags flown aboard the international space station and seemingly signed by a NASA astronaut showed up last week on the online auction site eBay.
The original eBay listing indicated that the 4-by-6-inch flags were brought aboard the space station by Russian cosmonaut Salizhan Sharipov in 2004, and an accompanying photo showed a sample flag that seemed to bear Sharipovs signature as well as that of Leroy Chiao, his NASA colleague on the station. Yet another photo showed several of the rebel flags floating in a space station module.
The item was pulled from the auction on Monday by the seller, Alex Panchenko of USSR-Russian Air-Space Collectibles Inc. in Los Angeles and on Tuesday, Panchenko told MSNBC.com that he removed the items from sale because he had concluded the flag and the authentication documents were forgeries.
However, Robert Pearlman, editor and founder of CollectSpace, said he believes the flags are authentic.
The picture taken of the flags aboard the station says a lot, he said. It would be difficult to fake, given the style and I couldn't see the motivation to do so. The onboard-the-ISS stamp, added Pearlman, is not known to have been counterfeited anywhere."
The disappearance of the flags followed a round of criticism over the weekend from former space scientist Keith Cowing, publisher of NASA Watch, an independent Web log. He cited the Confederate flags as an example of bad judgment on the ISS.
You'd think that someone on the U.S. side of the ISS program would have expressed some concern about flying a symbol on the ISS that many Americans associate with slavery, Cowing wrote.
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
one of the members of the DY coven of fools/bigots/REVISIONISTS (i THINK it was "#3fan", but i'm NOT sure.) said that southerners couldn't be believed about ANYTHING, because "they always lie".
and anyone wonders why i consider "the members of the DY coven" to be anti-dixie BIGOTS & nitwits???? (lol AT them)
one of the members of the DY coven of fools/bigots/REVISIONISTS (i THINK it was "#3fan", but i'm NOT sure.) said that southerners couldn't be believed about ANYTHING, because "they always lie".
and anyone wonders why i consider "the members of the DY coven" to be anti-dixie BIGOTS & nitwits???? (lol AT them)
free dixie,sw
It's interesting how you guys are always trotting out the northern black codes, but never acknowledge the role of the fugitive slave laws the south had insisted upon in causing those laws.
Despite those laws, though, somehow the 1860 census found that there were over 7600 free blacks living in Illinois.
Excellent point.
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