Word: nasa
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Although scientists are fairly certain that the moon supports no life, NASA has taken care to guard against lunar infection. During the homeward voyage, Columbia's environmental-control system circulated the air within the capsule more than 100 times, passing it through special filters. On earth, the precautions were equally stringent. Besides the astronauts, the only persons allowed in the Mobile Quarantine Facility (MQF) were a doctor and an engineer. During the next three days, about all that relieved the tedium was a video-tape replay of the moon walk. The most interested viewer was Collins...
...lunar soil and rocks were flown off the U.S.S. Hornet in two helicopters and taken to Johnston Island. From there, they were airlifted aboard two planes directly to Houston, then trucked to the Lunar Receiving Lab (LRL). The space agency gave the rocks such VIP treatment that NASA Administrator Thomas Paine, Robert Gilruth, director of the Manned Spacecraft Center, and Apollo Spacecraft Manager George Low were all on hand to welcome them...
...week's end, the first box was opened by a technician working with surgical care as his gloved hands reached into a sealed vacuum chamber, where the lunar package had been placed. While four NASA geologists looked on, he slowly drew off any gases that might have been given off by the rocks, opened the box, then removed a piece of foil that had been used to trap solar particles and two lunar core samples. Finally, he opened the plastic bag containing the rocks themselves. The scientific observers said that the 15 or so rocks -the largest...
...debate the scientific results of the lunar voyage. M.I.T. Geophysicist Frank Press wagered a case of champagne on his conviction that the moon actually has quakes. Certain that the moon specimens will show some evidence that there was once water on the moon, Dr. Persa Bell, director of NASA's Lunar Receiving Lab, bet a skeptical colleague a bottle of Scotch...
Despite such minor hitches, scientists were in unanimous agreement on the value of the expedition. The landing site, especially, pleased geologists. "It is a very much rockier surface than we might have expected," said NASA Geology Consultant Eugene Shoemaker, who thinks that it afforded a far wider sampling of the lunar surface than would have been found at a smoother landing site. Boulders ejected from craters as far away as 600 miles might well be in the area, he added. Another unexpected dividend, said NASA Geologist Ted Foss, was that many of the rocks may have come from the large...