Ambassador of Exploration lunar sample

Seeing a true American hero at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science was a delightful treat.

On Saturday November 10, 2007, the Ambassador of Exploration Lunar Sample was awarded to Colorado native Scott Carpenter, a Sealab aquanaut, one of NASA’s original Mercury Seven astronauts and the second American man to orbit the Earth in May of 1962.

Doug Cooke, the Deputy Associate Administrator for the Exploration Systems Mission Directorate, on behalf of NASA Administrator Michael Griffin, awarded Carpenter the lunar sample. The moon rock, encased in Lucite, is over 4 billion years old and was collected on the surface of the moon in 1972 by the crew of Apollo 17.

This piece of the moon, an inspiration to the next generation of explorers who will venture back to the moon, Mars and beyond, will be on permanent public display in DMNS’s Space Odyssey.

I even asked Carpenter a question during the presentation.

Ambassador of Exploration Lunar Sample

Posted by RAD at November 10, 2007 10:32 PM