[meteorite-list] Moon Rock Goes To Everest And Flies On Space Shuttle

[Phil Whitmer]

Greetings, my fellow Americans, international Listerians, and lurkers:

Last month, the Michiana Astronomical Society got up close and personal to 
the moon rock  brought back to Earth by Neil Armstrong, then taken to the 
top of Mt. Everest by astronaut Scott Parazynski.  It was then flown on the 
space shuttle Endeavor to the space station, where it sat in the window 
before being returned to terra firma. It was shown by Dr. Carlton Allen, 
NASA Curator for Extraterrestrial Materials at the Johnson Space Center. I 
also got to fondle my first Antarctica meteorite, a black crusted OC with 
white spots on the crust.  I didn't really notice this feature until I 
looked at the close up photo. The good Dr. also brought along an interesting 
group of geological samples from the moon's surface. He said we'll probably 
be returning to the moon soon, but he didn't think we'd be going to Mars 
anytime soon, simply because it's so darn far away. He mentioned that all 
mountains on the moon are formed by meteorite impacts, pretty obvious I 
guess, but it never occurred to me. After his talk, someone asked if all the 
NASA moon rocks are accounted for and he told the story of how Tricky Dick 
gave away a bunch of moon rocks, most of which have gone missing. Like an 
idiot, I said: "So you got back all the rocks stolen by the intern kids 
then?"  He said: "Oh, you had to bring that up! That was the worst day of my 
life!"  "Yes, we got them back and the ringleader is doing 8 years of hard 
time."  When someone asked the value of the moon rock, he said: "It's worth 
about 8 months a gram." That got a good laugh. I was very impressed that he 
would travel all the way to Indiana to give a presentation to our small 
group.  (It must have been on the way to somewhere more important.)


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Phil Whitmer