If hindsight is 20/20, what is foresight? Foresight like that of NASA leaders in the 1970s who locked 840 pounds of moon rocks and dust in a vault until technology advanced enough to study them accurately deserves at least 20/10.
It’s even more impressive when you consider that NASA leaders at the time had no idea Apollo 17 would be the United States’ last mission to the moon for over half a century.
Almost 50 years later, the Apollo Next Generation Sample Analysis Program is bridging the gap between today’s scientists and yesterday’s astronauts—quite literally, in some cases. For example, astronaut Harrison “Jack” Schmitt, who was the first and only geologist ever to walk on the moon, has partnered with Purdue University’s Michelle Thompson for the analysis of the moon rocks and lunar soil samples.
“When these samples were collected, when men walked on the moon, I hadn’t even been born yet,” said Thompson, an assistant professor of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences. “This sample has been on Earth longer than I have. It has been sitting in storage, waiting for scientists to analyze it since it was returned. Scientists now have tools and technologies that the original generation of astronauts could only dream of. Now it’s our turn to follow in their footsteps and study the moon rocks they brought back.”
While on the moon’s surface during the Apollo 17 mission, Schmitt and Eugene Cernan, a fellow Purdue alum, extracted a 24-inch-long lunar core sample and sealed it in a metal tube. Upon landing, that tube—and many others—were placed into a vault that hasn’t been opened—at least not until Thompson and her graduate student recently traveled to the Johnson Space Center in Houston.
There, they safely separated the material into a number of smaller samples from different depths of the core. Now, they are studying the dust’s chemistry and microstructure using advanced imaging tools, like electron microscopes, to gain deeper insights into the moon’s history.
The specific lunar core sample Thompson is studying comes from a part of the moon that may have experienced an avalanche. The planetary expert is hoping her team will be able to understand what the surface of the moon was like before and after the avalanche, gaining greater knowledge of how the moon’s soil has developed over time. Ultimately, these insights will be vital for any long-term moon base plans.
“Who knows how much this core sample, this little collection of dust, will change what we know about the moon?” says grad student James McFadden.
Also part of the Apollo Next Generation Sample Analysis Program, Purdue physicist Marc Caffee is studying radionuclides to determine how cosmic radiation has interacted with the moon. Researchers at the University of California, Berkley are dissolving minute quantities of moon dust and sending elements isolated by the process to Caffee for further analysis.
“For us cosmogenic scientists, the lunar cores are like a holy grail,” said Caffee. “We love lunar cores because they have so much they can teach us about radionuclide production rates, solar activity and the depositional history of the core itself. We can use them to calibrate production rates of radionucleotides on Earth, which is extremely useful to us.”
Caffee had just started studying lunar geology after the Apollo missions returned to Earth. He recalls that early analysis of samples required a large amount of dust or rocks in order to get results that were significant and accurate.
Now, Caffee only needs milligrams of the materials to generate even more accurate information.
“We can do so much more research than they would have been able to using the same rocks,” he said, further illustrating the impressive foresight NASA leaders showed by choosing to store the moon samples until analytical techniques advanced.
Fifty years later, the tools, techniques, samples and scientists—both new and old—are finally ready.
“Studying these fantastic materials is like opening up a present. It gives a whole new generation of scientists, the opportunity to be involved in the Apollo program,” said Thompson.
Photo: Michelle Thompson is one of the new generation of scientists working on the Apollo moon missions. Credit: Michelle Thompson/Purdue University