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A Moon rock on Mt. Everest: Not for keeps

Mr. Ian Sheffield of Edinburgh Scotland is miffed. He claims to have not one, but two dust samples of the Moon—one from the Apollo 11 mission and another from the Apollo 15 mission. He explains that he bought these lunar samples “from a dealer” about 3 years ago. The article does not indicate how much he paid for them, but he does allow that each is valued at “around £2000” (about $3300) each.

A problem arose when he planned to display his samples to the public. He apparently wrote to NASA asking if he could exhibit them. To his astonishment, NASA refused to give him permission and demanded the return of the samples, claiming that the lunar dust in his possession was property of the United States government.

Mr. Sheffield’s story of how the samples came into his possession is interesting. He states the dust came off a camera film pack to which a technician in the Lunar Receiving Laboratory was accidentally exposed. Because no one was sure the lunar samples would not contain some possible primitive (and pathogenic) organisms when the Apollo 11 crew first returned to Earth, they had to spend three weeks in quarantine. Anybody in the LRL exposed to lunar material was compelled to join the astronauts in their quarantine. The technician who was exposed went into isolation and (the story claims) upon his release, “was given the dust as a memento.”

My antennae went up at this point. No lunar samples are “given” to private individuals. Each piece of the Moon returned by the Apollo astronauts is carefully accounted for and resides in the Lunar Curatorial Facility in Houston, where they are kept in two separate hurricane-proof vaults. Many lunar samples are loaned to scientific institutions for study. The only lunar samples given away (of which I am aware) were to about a hundred national leaders during President Nixon’s 1969 world tour. The beautiful “Space Window” in the Washington National Cathedral, honoring man’s landing on the Moon, holds a 7.18-gram basalt from Mare Tranquillitatis, on loan to the Cathedral. Other moon rocks were presented to the Apollo astronauts (and Walter Cronkite) in 2004. However, each plaque came with a catch: the lunar samples can not be personally held by the recipients, and must be displayed at a local school or museum. Recently, Astronaut Scott Parazynski was loaned a sample of the Moon’s regolith that he carried to the summit of Mount Everest.

Some diplomatic gifts of lunar samples have found their way onto the black market. A notorious case is a sample presented to the people of Honduras back in 1969. This sample turned up during a NASA Inspector General “sting” which was designed to catch dealers of fake lunar samples. To the agents’ surprise, they were offered a genuine lunar rock: asking price, $5 million. A meeting was arranged and the rock (and presumably, the seller) was seized. Another lunar sample was stolen from a museum in Malta between 1990 and 1994; it was recovered in another sting operation in 1998.

The federal government forbids private ownership of any Apollo sample. Yet, such samples show up every now and then. The most common form they take is dust stuck to adhesive tape (an easy way to “clean” the surface of some exposed sample container, tool, or space suit used on the lunar surface). Mr. Sheffield’s sample is likely to be one of these pieces. Its status, I was surprised to find out, is legally uncertain. Although NASA has sued in court to recover any such bootleg sample, no prosecution has succeeded, except for those caught (literally) in the act of theft. In an embarrassing incident for NASA, a summer intern and two companions carried a safe full of lunar samples out of a building at Johnson Space Center (as Dave Barry would say, I am not making this up). They were apprehended while trying to sell them at bargain basement prices and subsequently prosecuted.

It was rumored for years that several of the Apollo astronauts held samples from their respective missions. If they did, it was probably inadvertent—the lunar dust is extremely adhesive and it is possible that smudges of lunar dust clung to personal items returned from the Moon in their Personal Preference Kits. Alan Bean, who documents the Apollo experience through his oil paintings, is said to add ground-up patches retrieved from his lunar space suit to his works. His reasoning is that because his suit was dirty with lunar dust, some of that dust must find its way into his paintings, giving them a true “lunar” ambiance.

So Mr. Ian Sheffield of Edinburgh may be home free. I might suggest to him that given their quasi-legal status, he is probably better off not calling attention to his possession of these unique artifacts. In fact, although NASA frowns on owning stolen Apollo lunar samples, there are dozens of lunar samples available for sale on eBay. A number of meteorites recovered on Earth, came from the Moon. Although most of them belong to national governments that sponsor the recovery of meteorites from Antarctica, several are in private hands and can be bought and sold, just as any commodity. Right now, there is a very nice anorthositic breccia from the lunar highlands for sale. Better hurry though – the sale only lasts another day. Oh yes, the asking price: a mere $144,000.

By the way, over the years, I have been asked to look at a few “lunar” samples that were in fact, lunar fakes. Caveat Emptor!

Museum piece: 40 years ago, on its way to the Moon

“Your job is not to envision the future, but to enable it.” – Antoine de St. Exupery

Originally, I had not planned to write anything for the blog today; the web is already inundated with retrospective-, perspective-, nostalgia-laden, crying-in-my-beer pieces on today’s 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 launch.  One shudders to think what’s coming in just a few days, on July 20, the actual anniversary of the lunar landing.  However, a news piece caught my eye because it casts the lunar landing in stark perspective (for me, at least) and makes me wonder whether some historical amnesia is at work within the space enthusiast community.

Ned Potter of ABC News has cast some cold water on the warm and rosy glow of the good old Apollo days.  In brief, he’s looked at some of the old polling data and finds that, lo and behold, the public was split on the value of going to the Moon.  In fact, a plurality of people polled back then opposed the lunar voyage, thinking that it cost too much money and delivered too little.  This actually jibes pretty well with my recollections.  As a young space enthusiast (I was 16 years old during the Apollo 11 mission), I can remember constantly defending spending money on the space program.  Mostly, I did this with my high school classmates but sometimes, I even argued with my parents about it!

The simple fact is, the public is now and has always been split on the value of a federal government space program.  It received its largest margin of support when viewed in the perspective of national security, but the lunar program was under fire as a waste of tax money from the beginning.  Even John F. Kennedy, widely credited today as a “visionary” President, desperately wanted to find some other arena in which we could compete with the Soviets and win.  At one point, he favored desalination of seawater as an appropriate scientific and technical challenge for America.

I have previously written on the nature of public support for space.  In my opinion, it’s a mile wide and an inch deep.  People are at best lukewarm in their support and virtually no one casts a vote on the basis of whether or not a candidate supports the space program.  Yet there is amongst the space community a feeling that somehow, getting people enthused about a space goal is essential to accomplishing that goal (putting the cart before the horse).

If the ABC News story is even partly correct, such a belief is unwarranted, both then and now.  In retrospect, we remember the successes and the triumphs, but forget about the naysayers.  How many remember that on the day of the Apollo 11 launch, there was a “poor people’s march” on Kennedy Space Center, led by Rev. Ralph Abernathy?  He told reporters that he had came “not to protest the moon program, but to remind America of its unfulfilled promises.”  When the rocket actually launched, he too was swept up with the thrill and emotion of it all and cheered on the mission as loudly as anyone.  Imagine!  Success drawing in a doubting public!   When you accomplish exciting things in space, you capture the imagination—people begin to believe that they too can own a piece of this great adventure.

Others look on the issue of public support for space as improving or static.  Andy Chaikin asks whether anyone “still cares” about the Moon.  But the real issues are who supports a lunar return and for what reasons.  As a people, Americans tend not to support endless public spectacles.  Today, people who still follow NASA are asking, “Where’s the beef?”   They’re looking for more than a postcard from space or a PR extravaganza.  They want some legacy from their investment and they are right for doing so.

Just saying that you’re doing something exciting isn’t the same as doing something exciting.  And hearing about how exciting something is sure as hell isn’t the same as doing it.  To launch an enduring legacy built on the accomplishment of Apollo 11 and begin the return on our investment, NASA needs to enable the private sector’s ability to capitalize on space resources, starting by demonstrating this capability on the Moon.  Then the public can join in the construction of a road to space as opposed to being mere spectators in a museum to the past.

Start the countdown to true space exploration freedom—the one that brings all of humanity into the business and the adventure of advancing to the stars.  Put the horse in front of the cart and enable the future.  Humanity’s imagination and resourcefulness will expand in the process and the benefits will be many.

How much money should we spend on space?

How much should we spend on America’s space program?  Does NASA’s budget need an infusion of billions of dollars?  The way these questions are answered gives some indication of why one believes we have a space program, what it should be doing and whether money is the key needed to unlock the barriers hindering our access to space.

Former NASA administrator Michael Griffin recently opined that, “we’re going to have to spend what it takes.”  If we can’t pursue space goals “with sufficient robustness,” he hopes that the newly formed Augustine Commission recommends that “we just not do it.”  Additionally, Norm Augustine himself recently said that, despite our current technology and knowledge, ultimately, “It boils down to what we can afford.”

As we all know, spending money is easy.  Spending money wisely is something else entirely.  The Apollo era, when money supposedly flowed freely, is often cited as the glory days of NASA.  Early Apollo spending was high primarily for two reasons.

First, in its early days, NASA had little infrastructure – few field centers, test equipment, space vehicles and the people to design, build, test and fly the spacecraft.  A lot of NASA’s early funding went toward building up the facilities needed to go to the Moon:  the KSC Moonport (the VAB and Launch Complex 39), the Houston MSC (now JSC) campus, the Deep Space Network and the several other installations around the country.

Second, there was a perceived political imperative that required rapid progress in space and this urgency expressed itself as high rates of expenditure.  Apollo was not a journey to the Moon—it was a race and the Soviets were thought to be ahead of us.  They orbited the first satellite and the first human.  They did the first spacewalk and were the first to hit the Moon with a robotic probe.  Being behind was a jolt and a wakeup call for Americans who believed our country was and should remain the world’s leader in technology.

With the lunar landing accomplished, the urgency of space dissipated and NASA adjusted to being just another federal agency, seeking to retain what it already had while expanding its sphere of activities to the extent that it could.  However, institutionally, NASA never abandoned its business model of “racing to somewhere.”  This way of thinking is manifest as NASA again pins its hopes for a viable space program on getting more money.

In 1989, President George H. W. Bush (Bush 41) outlined what became known as the
Space Exploration Initiative (SEI).  It called for a permanent lunar base and a manned mission to Mars.  NASA’s response to the new mission directive was tepid; it produced a 90-Day Study that concluded we could do SEI if the agency budget was increased substantially.  In other words, the agency response to the Presidential directive was “Give us more money.”

Flash forward 15 years.  In an attempt to set a long term strategic direction for space and to assure that we maintain a productive, technological workforce, President George W. Bush (Bush 43) outlined the Vision for Space Exploration (VSE).  It directed NASA to return humans to the Moon and learn to use lunar resources, followed by manned Mars missions, all the while integrating private industry into the architecture.

NASA’s response to the Vision was the Exploration Systems Architecture Study (ESAS), which outlined an approach using Shuttle-derived hardware.  However, as work unfolded,  Shuttle heritage was diluted, costs rose rapidly, the date of lunar return receded, and the idea of incrementally developing a sustainable space infrastructure using lunar resources was abandoned.  The lunar surface mission was warped into a “touch and go” demonstration followed by an Apollo-style Mars mission, staged entirely from the Earth.  Once again the agency’s response to a new exploration challenge was to close ranks and follow the Apollo template, repeating the refrain, “Give us more money.”

Now NASA’s former administrator, Mike Griffin tells Norm Augustine to “do it right or don’t do it at all.”  In effect, Griffin is playing the “Washington Monument” game, a form of budgetary blackmail that threatens to terminate something believed to be strongly supported by Congress and the public (in this case, human spaceflight) unless some increased budgetary threshold is reached (in this case, more money to implement the ESAS.)  But this “game” only works when you’re holding the high cards, in this case that the public won’t stand for the termination of human spaceflight.

In a previous blog I discussed the issue of public support for space exploration.  While people don’t often think about space (and virtually no one casts their vote based on how the space program is funded), they still like the idea of having a space program.  The fact that we’ve had the same space budget for thirty years (in constant dollars, between 0.5 and 1.0% of federal spending, more or less) suggests that this level of funding is politically sustainable.

As celebrations for the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11 begin, the agency has been unable to create a sustainable architecture for lunar return, thereby bleeding the life out exploration efforts.  There is still no plan for lunar surface activities.  In their urgency to exit the Moon as rapidly as possible and get to Mars, NASA is side-stepping the principal reason they were to go to the Moon in the first place – to learn the skills needed to live and work productively on another world.   Is it any wonder that Congress and the public are uneasy about their space agency and its plea for more money?

The response to the questions I asked at the beginning should not be, “Give them more money.” The question we need to ask NASA is, “Given a constant level of funding over time, can you create a program that incrementally and cumulatively builds up a real space faring capability?”

If the answer to that question is “No,” then we need to ask, “Why not?”