Sealed Cache of Moon Rocks to Be Opened by NASA

“Now we can go to a mineral and we can look at the very fine details, down to almost the width of a human hair.” A human hair? 125 microns? Big deal. Maybe she meant a very, very small fraction of a hair? A couple nanometers maybe?

Get your own in the Nevada desert, where they got theirs.

However some rocks got out before the rest were sealed. Aristotle Onassis gave Jacqueline Kennedy actual Earrings made from moon rocks.

I wonder if the president actually believes these rocks came from the moon. Maybe that’s why he thinks we need to go to the moon. The first time was really a conspiracy and faked.

In 1975 I was briefly the chaperone and proud possessor of a moon rock, courtesy of NASA. I was then associated with a Philadelphia museum for which I had arranged a temporary exhibit on moon exploration. NASA informed me that we could borrow a moon rock but only on the condition that I would I would accompany it from and to D.C. and buy a separate seat for it. The flight attendants were quite amused when I showed up with two tickets and a clunky box containing the moon rock in a sealed, see-through plastic container. I duly buckled the box into its window seat so as to place it farther from the reach of possible rock-snatchers. It was evening when I returned to Philadelphia so I took the rock home for the night, where I stared at it for minutes on end. It looked more like a piece of asphalt from any urban pothole than an extra-terrestrial object, but it kept me riveted. For about one millisecond I toyed with the idea of swapping in a piece of asphalt and keeping the real moon rock for myself, but of course understood that I had a sacred trust to present museum visitors with the real thing, which is what museums are all about. The moon rock exhibit opened to record crowds but soon the thrill wore thin; when the show ended I sent the rock back to NASA in the custody of another staff member. You must trust me that I returned the real moon rock and not a piece of asphalt. I do hope it bears a strong resemblance to the ones NASA is about to reveal.

An advanced civilization has to keep doing doing advanced things. Or else it falls prey to hucksters who say things like coal mining and concrete walls will make us great again.

Would anyone care to make a wager on finding a living tardigrade? Seriously, though--- this is amazing. I remember going outside on the night of June 20th and staring up at the moon, imagining the reality that there were human on it as I watched.

After watching Apollo 11 as a 6 year old, I am still in awe of our space program!! And this is really cool!!

Looking forward to hear their findings!