President Joe Biden hasn’t revealed much about his space policy priorities, but space fans can rest assured he’s thinking about space thanks to an Apollo Moon rock that now graces the Oval Office.
Why it matters: The moonstone – loaned to the White House by NASA – is on display “as a symbolic recognition of the aspirations and achievements of previous generations, and as support for America’s current approach to lunar to Mars exploration,” said a statement from NASA.
Background: The moonstone was collected in 1972 by Harrison Schmitt and Eugene Cernan of Apollo 17, who “broke this monster off a large boulder” while they were about 2 miles away from their Lunar Module, NASA said.
- The rock – which is about 3.9 billion years old – weighs just under 1 pound.
- “The irregular sample surfaces contain small craters created by micrometeorite impacts sandblasting the rock for millions of years,” NASA said in the statement. “The flat, serrated sides were made in NASA’s Lunar Curation Laboratory when slices were cut for scientific research.”
The big picture: According to Robert Pearlman, space historian and editor of Collectspace.com, this rock is the second monster of the moon loaned to the White House by NASA for long-term display.
- In 1999, NASA lent the White House a moon rock from Apollo 11 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 remained in the room at Clinton’s request until he left his office in January 2001,” Pearlman wrote.