081 SMITH JOURNALMOON ROCK IS NOT MUCH TO LOOK
AT. IF PRESENTED WITH AN AMOUNT
OF MOON ROCK WITHOUT BEING
INFORMED OF ITS TERROIR, YOU
COULD BE FORGIVEN FOR ASSUMING
THAT YOU WERE HOLDING DETRITUS
RETRIEVED FROM THE BOTTOM
OF A BARBECUE.
..........................................
Nor, really, is Moon rock in short supply:
though only 382 kilograms were collected
by the United States’ Apollo missions
between 1969 and 1972, there’s still an
entire Moon’s worth of the stu up there
in the sky, and NASA apparently has
plans to revisit the place shortly.
For the moment, however, Moon rock may
be the most valuable substance known to
humankind. This was discovered the hard way,
in 2003, by four conspirators who purloined
a quantity of the stu from NASA’s Johnson
Space Center in Houston, and attempted to
sell it. NASA intern Thad Roberts and his
accomplices stole a safe which contained,
among other extra-terrestrial treasures,
53 lunar samples, totalling 142 grams.
After the plan unravelled – their putative
customer shopped them to the FBI – an
American court calculated the value of the
lunar material by figuring out how much
it had cost the U.S. government per gram
to bring it to Earth. The figure arrived at
was $50,800 U.S.D. – nearer $200,000 in
21 st-century money, and an estimate which
values Moon rock as roughly six times
more expensive than diamonds.That being the case, one might reasonably
assume that every last fragment and speck
of Moon rock is meticulously catalogued and
jealously guarded. One would be mistaken.
An extraordinary number of the samples
brought to Earth have gone missing – which
has also encouraged a minor industry of
chancers, hucksters and their pursuers.
Moon rock’s problem may be that it looks
like Moon rock: it is certainly diicult to
imagine diamonds being treated with
such complacent carelessness.In 2011, a Moon rock with an estimated
value of $10 million was found in the files
of former U.S. president Bill Clinton: it had
been presented to the state of Arkansas in
1976, and the plaque to which it was aixed
had hung in Clinton’s oice in Little Rock
during his first stint as governor. In 1980,
when Clinton lost a bid for re-election, it
was packed up along with everything else.
The rock fell o the plaque, and wasn’t seen
again until a researcher opened a box three
decades later: the Moon rock was found
nestled among other flotsam including a
picture of ostriches, some old file folders,
and a child’s drawing of a fish.Of course, it is not unusual for a gift to be of
greater value to the giver than the recipient:
the world’s cellars are full of items that are
returned to the upper floors and swept of
their cobwebs only when the insane relative
who presented the woebegone bottle is
coming to visit. “But come on,” you can
certainly imagine the consciousness of
the United States importuning, “these
are actual goddamn Moon rocks.”Indeed, the administration of President
Richard Nixon, which presided over the period
of the Apollo lunar missions, certainly thought
that America’s monopoly on Moon rocks could
enable one of the great soft power initiatives of
all time. By way of both emphasising American
power and promoting the idea that the Moon
landings had been a triumph in which the
world could share – the proverbial giant leap for
mankind – it was decided to give Moon rocks
to all 50 U.S. states (and four U.S. territories),
as well as to 135 friendly countries. The gesture
was made in 1970 with rocks brought home
by Apollo 11, and repeated in 1973 with the
bounty of Apollo 17. The rocks were packaged
up handsomely, on presentation plaques
bearing the fragment of Moon alongside
the flag of the country honoured.>>Opposite page
A rare moon rock sample that
hasn’t gone missing: Apollo 17
lunar sample number 72415,0.
Photo: Karl Mills, Scientific Photo
Arts, Berkeley, California