In article , says...

snip

There was even an early-70s proposal to commercially finance a final
Apollo mission, although it didn't get very far, at least partly because
NASA's reaction was total hostility.

Oh, yeah -- Project Harvest Moon. It was proposed in late 1971 to have
the Apollo 15 crew revisit Hadley-Appenine, using the original Apollo 15
H-mission LM/CSM combo (prior to the cancellation of Apollos 18 and 19
and the re-assignment of the first J-mission hardware to Apollo 15).
They would retrieve pieces of the Rover and Falcon's descent stage, as
well as the original flag, and collect about 100 pounds of rocks. The
rocks abd artifacts would be sold to finance the project.

I think one of the biggest problems the organizers had was that they
made initial inquiries about the costs and such, then made their
announcement -- all without actually inquiring about whether NASA was
*willing* to sell the hardware and rent the control center, controllers,
astronauts, etc., for this little project.

I'd say the animosity was justified.

Doug