NASA is just now opening a vacuum-sealed sample it took from the moon 50 years ago

|

March 8th, 2022

Astronaut and geologist Harrison Schmitt is seen in the Lunar Roving Vehicle during NASA's Apollo 17 mission on Dec. 13, 1972. A lunar soil sample collected on the mission has remained sealed until now.

Eugene A. Cernan - NASA / Eugene A. Cernan - NASA

Fifty years ago, astronauts on one of NASA’s Apollo missions hammered a pair of tubes 14 inches long into the surface of the moon. Once the tubes were filled with rocks and soil, the astronauts — Eugene Cernan and Harrison “Jack” Schmitt — vacuum-sealed one of the tubes, while the other was put in a normal, unsealed container. Both were brought back to Earth.

Now, scientists at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston are preparing to carefully open that first tube, which has remained tightly sealed all these years since that 1972 Apollo 17 mission — the last time humans set foot on the moon.

Why so long? To take advantage of the technology of the future — our present.

Related

Top Stories