Moonrock1

The launch in 1972 of Apollo 16

On each mission two astronauts

went down to the Moon’s surface.

The third astronaut had to stay

in the Command-Service Module

that was orbiting the Moon

6 Apollo Landings on the Moon

One View seen by Apollo 17

astronauts orbiting the Moon

The maria are smooth, lower,

and darker than the highlands

The arrow is pointing to one

crater that has a diameter of

20 kilometers!

Apollo 17 astronauts repaired a

broken fender with a map and duct tape.

One key task for the people

who will live and work at a

lunar base is field geology.

The real work of geology is

mapping rock distributions

and observing the different

features in the field on both

large and small scales.

A common feature in basaltic lava flows on Earth is the lava tube.

In the illustration, astronauts are examining a lava tube on the Moon.

This astronaut collected many

walnut-sized rocks with a rake

These samples proved to be

extremely valuable because

they provided a very broad

sampling of the rock types

present at the landing site.

Returned by the Apollo 15 Mission

The holes are frozen gas bubbles called “vesicles”,

a common feature of terrestrial volcanic rocks

Anorthosites are 98%

Plagioclase Feldspar

This kind of mineral

rock is formed by

either floating or

sinking in a magma

Returned by the Apollo 15 mission

Rock

fragments

mixed

together

are called

breccias

With so many craters of all sizes in the lunar highlands, it is no

wonder that the rocks have been modified by meteorite impact

Returned by the Apollo 16 mission

Rock

fragments

mixed

together

are called

breccias

This is a key

element for

rocket propellants

can be extracted

from the surface

materials by

reaction with

hydrogen

The Moon has no running water or air to breathe,

but its soil contains enormous amounts of oxygen

This is a key

element for

life support

can be extracted

from the surface

materials by

reaction with

hydrogen

It might be exported for use in Earth

orbit or to fuel spacecraft on trips to

Mars and elsewhere in the Solar System

Orange drops of lava cooled

very quickly and did not have

time crystallize so most of the

droplets are composed of glass

The dark drops did have time

to partially crystallize, and so

formed the opaque mineral

ilmenite, which appears black.

Returned by the Apollo 17 mission

This view Is 2.5 millimeters across

NASA JOHNSON SPACE CENTER, HOUSTON, TEXAS

Samples remain in glass and

steel cabinets, bathed in an

atmosphere of pure nitrogen,

to protect the samples from

altering by reaction with air.

Technicians who curate lunar

samples don’t really touch them.

They can pick them up using

Teflon - covered gloves that are

mounted on the sealed cabinets

Painting by William Hartmann

Traditional ideas for the lunar

origin had flaws so scientists

devised an idea that the Moon

formed as a result of an impact

of a projectile the size of Mars.

The impact melted our planet

and some of the material spun

off ending up in orbit around

Earth forming our Moon.

The far-side of the Moon was never

seen until the time of the Apollo era.

The dark areas are called maria and

they are barely visible from Earth

The lighter areas are on average just

a few kilometers higher than most of

the maria and are intensely cratered.

NOW

Use your own

imagination to

envision YOU

on the MOON

Here you are, our Earth’s first

Space Generation, explaining

to a member of the next space

generation just exactly where

our ancestors came from.

This is what the Earthrise

looks like from lunar orbit

During your

lifetime, a

lunar base

will exist.

TATA agrees

to explore all

alternatives

to all of our

energy needs.In your lifetime