Outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means.

Clearly the US government cannot both lay claim to the rice grain sized piece of moon rock and still be in compliance with the treaty. The only way for the US government to legally claim ownership to any lunar rock is for the US to exercise Article 16 of the treaty (the escape clause), wait a year, and then go and get more lunar rocks – and any moon rocks collected between ratification of the treaty and one year after deratification can not belong to the US government. Since the US government cannot write retroactive laws (including retroactively breaking with the international treaty) no Apollo rocks may legally be the property of the US government.

By confiscating the material (and assaulting her), then leaving her without any charges being filed whatsoever, NASA has totally crossed the line. Several people involved should be summarily fired, and perhaps charged with assault among other things.

I hope she sues NASA for a lot of money.

This is almost certainly not true. While it is very probable that we would be deprived of the use of the affected orbits for a very long time we would be able to pass through the debris field with an acceptable level of risk to access higher orbits. This hardly makes me sanguine about the intentional, or even accidental , creation of a LEO debris field, but we should be careful not to overstate the case.

http://www.er.doe.gov/bes/reports/files/SEU_rpt.pdf

http://www.er.doe.gov/bes/reports/files/SEU.pdf