NASA Gives Media, Public Look Inside Apollo Moon Rock Vault

June 25, 2009

Katherine Trinidad
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1100


Josh Byerly
Johnson Space Center, Houston
281-483-5111


MEDIA ADVISORY: M09-116

NASA GIVES MEDIA, PUBLIC LOOK INSIDE APOLLO MOON ROCK VAULT

HOUSTON -- NASA will offer reporters an unprecedented chance to
conduct interviews with scientists inside the lab that stores moon
rocks Apollo astronauts collected during their six missions. The July
2 interview opportunities from the Apollo Lunar Sample Processing Lab
and Storage Vaults at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston will
take place nearly 40 years after humans first walked on the moon.

Using the NASA Television's Live Interview Media Outlet satellite
channel, news organizations will have a chance to talk with
scientists who study the lunar samples. The interviews will originate
from inside the lunar sample vault, amid the trays of moon rocks and
soil samples. Among the samples are those Apollo 11 astronauts Neil
Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin brought back to Earth in July 1969.

Live interview opportunities will be available from 6 a.m. to 8 a.m.
and 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. CDT with lunar sample scientists Gary Lofgren
and Andrea Mosie. Lofgren is the lunar curator at Johnson and has
been with the lab since the Apollo era. Mosie has been a scientist in
the current lab since it opened in 1979.

To participate in the interviews, journalists should contact Victor
Scott at 281-483-4942 or no later than noon,
July 1.

The public also will have an opportunity to take a virtual tour of
the
lunar sample lab and ask the scientists questions via Ustream and
Twitter from 12 p.m. to 1 p.m. The public can submit questions to
Johnson's Twitter account, @NASA_Johnson, beginning today and via
Ustream live during the event. The tour and the question-and-answer
session also will be broadcast live on NASA TV.

To view the live broadcast on Ustream and submit questions, visit:

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/nasa-live

Between 1969 and 1972, six Apollo spaceflight missions brought back
842 pounds and 22,000 separate samples of lunar rocks, core samples,
pebbles, sand and dust from the lunar surface. The majority of the
samples are stored at the Apollo Lunar Sample Processing Lab and
Storage Vaults at Johnson, with a small subset held at the White
Sands Space Harbor in New Mexico. The samples continue to be studied
by scientists around the world. The work has provided invaluable
knowledge as NASA prepares to return to the moon.

The NASA Live Interview Media Outlet satellite channel will be used
for the event. The channel is a digital satellite C-band downlink by
uplink provider Americom. It is on satellite AMC 6, transponder 5C,
located at 72 degrees west, downlink frequency 3785.5 Mhz based on a
standard C-band 5150 Mhz L.O., vertical polarity, FEC is 3/4, data
rate is 6.00 Mhz, symbol rate is 4.3404 Mbaud, transmission DVB,
minimum Eb/N0 is 6.0 dB. For NASA TV streaming video, downlink and
schedule information, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/ntv

For more information about the Apollo lunar samples and lab, visit:

http://curator.jsc.nasa.gov/lunar/index.cfm

NASA is planning a number of activities and events in 2009 as the
40th
anniversary of the first moon landing on July 20 approaches. The
events will celebrate the Apollo Program, its accomplishments, and
the benefits to our lives today. For more information, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/apollo40th

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