The last set foot on the Moon was in 1972, and soil and rock samples taken from the Moon’s ground with metal tubes were returned to Earth together with the astronauts. While some of these samples were opened for examination, some of them have been preserved in metal tubes since then.
Apollo astronauts Eugene Cernan and Harrison “Jack” Schmitt, who brought the samples to Earth, perhaps didn’t think that these samples would be stored in a private lab at NASA’s Johnson Space Center during their 10 presidential administrations; but the space agency waited until technology advanced to preserve the tube’s intact contents. And one of those examples was recently opened after half a century of waiting.
The information obtained from the sample is important for the next Moon mission
locked in the metal container in which it came to Earth from the Moon for 50 years and remaining in the hands of humanity. sample 73001, one of the last Moon samples, was opened a short time ago. Commenting on the opening of the sample, NASA’s Apollo sample curator, Ryan Zeigler, noted, “We expected the devices to be better.”
As you can imagine, however, there is more to the name of the decision to unseal the extremely rare specimen than scientific curiosity and technological progress. NASA is building a new megarocket with the powerful Space Launch System for the next manned mission to the Moon, and plans to set foot on the Moon, specifically on the ‘dark’ side of the Moon, by the end of this decade. For this, NASA needs the help of these samples.
The best luck to find out what gas is leaking from the Moon
All lunar samples collected between 1969 and 1972 were obtained by the one near the Moon’s equator. But before NASA heads to a different region in search of valuable resources (like hydrogen, oxygen and ice), it wants to know what gases are leaking from the Moon and what exactly is in the equatorial rock collected by the Apollo astronauts. So NASA needs to measure what can be discovered in the South Pole and compare how different or valuable the resources in this new region are.
This is exactly where the gases accumulated in the 73001 sample, which has been sealed for 50 years, come into play. “This gives us the best chance to find out what gas is leaking from the Moon,” Zeigler notes.
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