posted 12-28-2002 10:54 PM            

I know Hawaii has been extremely vigilant when it comes to looking out for 'foriegn soil'.

I'm wondering if anything like this exists.

posted 01-01-2003 05:08 AM            

If I feel like it later - it is New Year day here when I saw this posting ! - I'll try and hunt down some of my news release bits/bobs I saved from the mid 60s/70s about this.

posted 01-01-2003 02:29 PM            

I think I found what I was looking for, and I'd be happy to see what you come up with when time permits.

Happy New Year and Aloha,

Rizz

posted 01-01-2003 03:11 PM               

(Almost as good as the A13 towing bill !)

Happy Collecting.....Adam

posted 01-05-2003 09:04 AM            

Had a good look through the files yesterday but didn't turn up anything about an 'Agricultural Form' that Apollo lunar crews may have had to adhere to

As the Apollo crews had to enter the Mobile Quarantine Facility (van) on board the USS aircraft carriers stationed in international waters then transported to USAFB in Hawaii the airlifted back to USA , I doubt if they went through this routine.

I think I am right in saying that there are 'certain' rules and regulations in the UN Treaty on The Peaceful Uses of The Moon (and other celestial bodies) about returning pieces of the Moon (and other planets and celestial bodies) to Earth. I think NASA (and USSR) would have had to make declarations about the Apollo and Luna (and other) programs. And, of course, lately teams associated with Clementine and TransOrbital will have had to do the same (via NASA as the USA's Outer Space UN rep).

posted 01-05-2003 09:38 AM            

Further info.

I do recall when I did my article on Lunar Research in early 1970 I had to go the UK Geological Sciences Museum in London to meet up with Professor Bowie. He had been allocated a very small sample of Apollo-11
and Apollo-12 to study with an electron microscope. These two very small samples had
- at the time - only just been released by NASA after the quarantine period. They were just two of several hundred small samples released to scientists to study around the world.

Now I do recall that I had to go through a "paper vetting process" and several days of hard work to get the interview and access to Professor Bowie because he had these two lunar samples.

However,it paid off and I was granted a chance to visit him in London. Not only that,after donning a lead body protection plate and lab coats,I was lead into a darkened lab where the electron microscope was with the two lunar samples . I was asked if I would like to view the A-12 sample under the 'scope .

Would I !! :-))

You bet!

Not only that,some few minutes later he asked if I would pass him the A-11 sample - mounted on its slide. It may have been microscopic but - that knowledge that I was holding a lunar sample freshly returned to Earth not many weeks earlier and being one of the first few hundred people in the world to handle such a specimen .

Well, I just 'quaked at the knees'. I literally shivered head to toe as I very very gingerly passed it to him. I didn't wash that hand for days afterwards !

I felt as if I had been let into the 'inner sanctum' !! A piece of the Moon that Neil or Buzz had collected just a few weeks earlier! Wow !

But, the purpose of this little story is that all the people who want to examine lunar samples have had to complete reams of documents and agree to multi-level security procedures.

It has been 'easier' in latter years but it is still in place.As a consequence, there will be many hundreds (probably thousands by now ) of these Forms around. Whether the LRL still keeps 'older' ones I do not know - you'd have to approach them yourself.

Besides the 'lunar touchstones' at places like KSC, I have had the privilege of holding many more lunar samples since that early one 1970 - especially the educational sample disks.But,besides the London experience ,the best one was at Keele University when a local geologist in the same geological society had a small case of lunar samples to examine. He invited me round and one day,I spent several hours with him looking at many of these lunar samples that included not only orange soil beads but a Luna-16 sample as well.(USA/USSR exchanged samples of Moon and some of the science sets that NASA loans to science investigators have some Luna samples aboard.

When I became interested in lunar programs (back in 1958) and then started reporting them in early 1960s for Spaceflight magazine (and some other publications) I never ever thought that one day I would be collecting actual flown items from multi-million dollar space programs that - at the time - were highly secure and protected by both sides even though USA was more publically open about it .

And,not only that, I would even have some real lunar soil samples , a Houston Mission Control Console and items flown from every Apollo landing mission and even items from the (then) highly secretive Soviet Union lunar programmes in it.!

Well,there you are!

I've reminisced and indulged myself yet again in a dream that actually came true :-))

posted 01-06-2003 03:29 AM            

What a fabulous journey. Thanks for the report and information.

Sure sounds like a dream come true.

Not too long ago, I was having a some samples of 'lunar dust' examined, which I aquired from Florian.

Long story short, I found myself in a similar situation, surrounded by microscopes, and lunar samples, and little spheres as well.

The lunar geologist examining my 'dust samples' was quite impressed. (actually, he was rather amazed at the claim that I had such things). We both figured I had a 50/50 chance of the sample actually being of lunar origin. Well, the samples turned out to be real, (which I kinda figured, based on how Florian obtained them) and then he asked me if I wanted to look at a larger sample.

I wanted to.

He opened a small safe, and took out of it a small 3/4" diameter vial, and carefully rolled into the palm of my hand a piece the size of a die, from the Ocean of Storms.

Words can't quite convey the experience, but the image of Bean and Conrad picking up this sample from the moon and bringing it back to Earth, and then being able to hold it in my hand was a very special moment in my life.

Thanks for researching my question, and for relating your experience.

Aloha,

posted 01-07-2003 02:05 PM            

Ditto !