posted September 14, 2006 08:52 PM               

I worked with Landrum Young, the group leader, and others by injecting lunar fines samples into mammalian models such as mice and rats to determine if the lunar fines were contaminated.

It was a great experience working through containment cabinets by using rubber gloves to handle the animals and the lunar fines. We did this for missions 11 [not there for the first one], 12 and 14.

After Apollo 14, we were able to work with the lunar fines in the open for missions 15, 16 and 17, and we continued the same methodology with increased documentation and experimentation.

I worked with peritoneal lavage using the lunar fines. Later... after the Apollo Program... I published a paper for Laboratory Animal Science based on this technique [1974].

I suggested to Landrum Young that we write a technical paper based on our approach of collecting blood samples from mice and rats. We put together a short paper which was published in Laboratory Animal Science [1972], and later we received a first place award from the organization for best technical published that year.

I did quite a bit of photomicroscopy of the lunar fines within a biological context and also did some electrophoresis work looking at mouse enzymes. I published a paper on this as well.

I'll never have an experience like the LRL one again. There was great excitement in the air. And having to put on scrubs and go through UV tunnels to and from work was an interesting process.

posted September 14, 2006 11:21 PM               

Anyway, I was wondering if you recognize yourself in any of these photos... or whether you can identify who are in these photos.

posted September 15, 2006 04:41 AM               

I remember my first encounter with the cabinets. The process of working [doing everything] through rubber gloves was surreal, and this feeling added to the feeling of excitement of just being a part of the Apollo Program.

The otherwordly surroundings of the Lunar Receiving Laboratory [LRL] of scrub suits, UV showers, big metal containment cabinets, sterilization chambers [autoclaves], etc. were befitting of a space program, and I felt if I was riding with them on their journey to the moon and back.

While the astronauts were on their way to the moon, on the surface and coming back from the moon, everyone... including me... was on pins and needles and in great anticipation of receiving the lunar samples. I don't think anyone got a good night's sleep during this phase of each mission. Again, there was a special feeling of something "alien" coming to our confines to be studied. I suppose I can say "alien" even though the moon is a part of mother Earth in its continual orbit around it.

And for me [probably everyone]... even through the glass of the containment cabinets... just seeing the lunar fines [dirt] as samples for our mammalian testing conjured up this incredible feeling of working in an "alien" environment and doing something in the history of mankind for the first time.

I kept think [still do] that out of the hundreds of millions of individuals who had raised their heads towards the sky and looked at the moon since the beginning, here I was looking at it just a few inches away... an unbelieveable experience. So I can imagine how the astronauts must have felt actually walking and digging on the moon.

And after the containment procedures were set aside for missions 15, 16 and 17, we were able to actually handle... via test tubes and in vials/crucibles... the lunar fines out in the open. This provided even more of an up close and personal approach.

It was a sad day when the Apollo Program came to an end. Most of our positions [mine included] were phased out, and we had to move on. Other involvements seemed anticlimactic after the NASA gig.

I continued doing research at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston for a few years then moved into medical media and communications at Texas Tech University and then into political media and communications for the Mayor's Office in Providence, Rhode Island.

Later, I served as a United States Peace Corps Volunteer in Zimbabwe developing arts programming and training staff in curatorial preparation for the National Gallery of Zimbabwe. I enjoyed this immensely, and I liked my Kennedy connection with two of the late President's initiatives: Peace Corps and Apollo Program.

posted September 15, 2006 10:17 PM               

I was on the biological sciences side, and my role as a research analyst during the Apollo program was to process mammalian models with Lunar fines [very small particles of the soil suspended in saline] to look for reactions/inflammation. Nothing out of the ordinary was found.

I suppose the big surprise was being able to work with samples, albeit dirt, from another celestial body... the moon. I've always been fascinated by the Cosmos, and having gone through the Apollo Program experience has put me a bit closer or in touch.

posted September 08, 2007 06:25 PM               

quote:

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Originally posted by BMckay:
Can anyone point me in the right direction to find any material in print or online regarding the old LRL and the current one?

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• Lunar Receiving Laboratory Project History (PDF)

• Moon rock laboratory at NASA turns 25

• 25 Years of Curating Moon Rocks

• Lunar Sample Laboratory Facility

posted September 09, 2007 07:34 AM               

Building 31N was dedicated as the Lunar Sample Laboratory Facility in 1979, two years after construction began to modify the building for the purpose. The current LSLF houses 80 percent of the moon rocks returned by Apollo, with the remaining samples stored off-site.

posted September 09, 2007 10:22 AM               

NASA provides lunar rock, soil, and regolith-core samples for both destructive and non-destructive analysis in pursuit of new scientific knowledge. Requests are considered for both basic studies in planetary science and applied studies in lunar materials beneficiation and resource utilization.

NASA [also] provides for a limited number of rock samples to be used for either short-term or long-term displays at museums, planetariums, expositions, or professional events that are open to the public. Requests for such display samples are administratively handled by the JSC Public Affairs Office (PAO).

Small samples of representative lunar rocks and soils, embedded in rugged acrylic disks suitable for classroom use, are made available for short-term loan to qualified school teachers.

NASA [has also] prepared thin sections of representative lunar rocks on rectangular 1 x 2-inch glass slides, with special safety frames, that are suitable for use in college and university courses in petrology and microscopic petrography for advanced geology students.

Lunar material returned by Apollo 11 was gifted to 135 nations. Each received a plaque with 0.05 grams of dust encased in acrylic along with a flag of their nation that was carried on-board the mission. Displays were also presented to the United Nations and Vatican City.

While on the Moon, Apollo 17 moonwalkers Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt dedicated a sample they collected as the Goodwill moon rock and upon their return, 135 1.142-gram pieces were cut from that stone. Like the earlier presentations, they were encased in acrylic and attached to a plaque bearing the flown flag of the country to which it was to be gifted.

These 272 samples are, to the best of my knowledge, the only Apollo-returned lunar rocks that are no longer U.S. property. In both the Apollo 11 and Apollo 17 instances, they were presented to the head of state on behalf of the people of his/her country. In most cases, under the laws of those nations, the rock became public property and not the possession of any one individual.

With regards to missing samples, of the United States' own holdings, very little (less than a few grams) has gone missing and NASA keeps very detailed regards as to the current location of those rocks they have loaned.

There have been confirmed and unconfirmed reports of some of the goodwill A11/A17 rocks having been stolen or officially having gone missing. In at least one case, the plaque was recovered and returned to the nation. Others are "missing" only so much as those who have tried to track the current whereabouts of such presentations have been unsuccessful in finding them. It may be that they are sitting exactly where that country desires them to be, but the researchers (myself included) haven't found it yet.

If you visit the link above for the A17 samples, you can see the known locations for those I, or our readers, have discovered. I plan to start a similar guide to the A11 samples as well.

posted July 08, 2008 12:35 AM               

In the lab, the Moon rocks look nondescript -- dark gray basalt, a whitish mineral called anorthosite and mixtures of the two with crystals thrown in. Yet nearly 40 years after the Apollo astronauts brought the first rocks back to Earth, these pieces of the Moon are still providing scientists with new secrets from another world.

"We call this one the 'genesis' rock, because it was formed close to the time the Moon solidified about 4.5 billion years ago," said Carlton C. Allen, pointing to a light-colored stone about the size and shape of a large artist's eraser, resting inside a glove box filled with inert nitrogen gas.

"We know the Big Bang happened about 14.5 billion years ago," Mr. Allen said, "and this rock is a third that old. You will never see a solid piece of stuff in our solar system that is any older."

Mr. Allen is the astromaterials curator at the Johnson Space Center, home of the Lunar Sample Laboratory Facility, a secure repository opened in 1979 to house 842 pounds of Moon rocks and soil collected by astronauts in six visits.

The rocks on the lunar surface, lying virtually unchanged in a weatherless vacuum since their formation, offer opportunities to investigate the origin and evolution of the solar system available nowhere else, and the study deepens with each new generation of scientists and scientific instruments.

Each year an independent peer review panel evaluates new research proposals, and curators mail out about 400 lunar samples to 40 to 50 scientists worldwide. Almost all are less than one gram in size. "We don't hand them out, we only loan them," Mr. Allen said. "We're not planning to run out any time soon."

posted June 25, 2009 07:05 PM               

NASA Gives Public Look Inside Apollo Moon Rock Vault

The public will have an opportunity to take a virtual tour of the Apollo Lunar Sample Processing Lab and Storage Vaults at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston and ask scientists Gary Lofgren and Andrea Mosie questions via Ustream and Twitter from 12 p.m. to 1 p.m. EDT on July 2. The public can submit questions to Johnson's Twitter account, @NASA_Johnson, beginning today and via Ustream live during the event. The tour and the question-and-answer session also will be broadcast live on NASA TV.

posted November 29, 2010 12:59 PM               

This is a heads-up that a civil servant position will be opening at the NASA Johnson Space Center for the position of Lunar Sample Curator.

The successful candidate will oversee the Apollo lunar sample collection and the lunar sample laboratory suite, and will be encouraged to perform independent research.

If you have any questions about the position feel free to contact Carlton Allen, Astromaterials Curator, by email or by phone at 281-483-5126.

JSC Human Resources will post the vacancy announcement on USAJOBS in early January, if all goes as planned. The announcement will contain details on the position.

In the meantime, anyone interested may want to get familiar with USAJOBS, specifically with the resume builder feature. For questions on the USAJOBS application process, contact Candy Hunt, HR representative.

posted November 29, 2010 08:59 PM               

quote:

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Originally posted by Robert Pearlman:
...talk about a dream job for a professional geologist and space history enthusiast

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posted March 12, 2012 10:05 AM               

However I'm curious to see photos of the samples being moved from the LRL (building 37) to their current storage, the Lunar Sample Laboratory Facility (LSLF) in building 31N at Johnson Space Center, where the Apollo lunar sample reside since 1979.