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President Joe Biden has yet to reveal much about his space policy priorities, but space fans can rejoice that space is on his mind, thanks to an Apollo Moon rock that now decorate the oval office.
Why is this important: The moon rock – on loan to the White House by NASA – is on display “in symbolic recognition of the ambitions and achievements of previous generations, and in support of the current approach to exploration from the Moon to Mars in America,” according to one NASA release.
Context: The moon rock was collected in 1972 by Harrison Schmitt and Eugene Cernan of Apollo 17, who “extracted this sample from a large boulder” while they were about 2 miles from their lunar module, according to NASA.
- The rock – which is around 3.9 billion years old – weighs just under a pound.
- “The irregular surfaces of the samples contain tiny craters created by the impacts of micrometeorites that have sanded the rock for millions of years,” NASA said in the statement. “The flat, sawn sides were created in NASA’s Lunar Conservation Laboratory when slices were cut for scientific research.
The big picture: This stone is the second specimen of the Moon on loan to the White House by NASA for long-term display, according to Robert Pearlman, space historian and editor of Collectspace.com.
- In 1999, NASA loaned an Apollo 11 moon rock to the White House in honor of the 30th anniversary of the landing when Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins and Buzz Aldrin visited then-President Bill Clinton in the oval office.
- “The rock, at Clinton’s request, remained on display in the room until he left office in January 2001,” Pearlman wrote.
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