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#1 2005-09-29 05:52:10

Palomar
Member
From: USA
Registered: 2002-05-30
Posts: 9,734

Re: Lunar rocks safe

*From space.com's "Astronotes":

September 28

Lunar Rocks: Safe and Sound After Rita

Hurricane Rita’s run-in with the NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas caused minor facility and ground damage. Furthermore, some of the most precious rocks on Earth also escaped unscathed – the Apollo lunar samples.

“The Lunar Facility never lost power and thus never lost the nitrogen gas that keeps the cabinets in which they are stored dry and free of oxygen,” said, Gary Lofgren, Lunar Curator and Planetary Geoscientist within the NASA center’s Astromaterials Acquisition & Curation division.

Lofgren said that the Lunar Facility is capable of withstanding a category 5 hurricane with its attendant frightening storm surge tide. “Fortunately it did not need that capability this time. We are all well and back in business,” he added.

Glad to know it.  A space museum in Alamogordo, NM has (or had...not sure they still do, it's been a couple of years since the last visit) a small moon rock on display. 

--Cindy


We all know [i]those[/i] Venusians: Doing their hair in shock waves, smoking electrical coronas, wearing Van Allen belts and resting their tiny elbows on a Geiger counter...

--John Sladek (The New Apocrypha)

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