Forget “Where’s Waldo?”, the popular children’s book and video game that seeks to find the title character. In Delaware, residents can play “Where’s the moon rock?”
[caption id="attachment_12656" align="alignleft" width="150" caption="Delaware's moon rock up close (courtesy Delaware Division of Historical & Cultural Affairs)"]
President Richard Nixon gave moon rocks from Apollo 17, the final mission, to each U.S. state and 136 foreign countries. The gifts also included small flags that the astronauts took with them to the moon.
You may think that the out-of-this-world specimens are on prominent display. But in most cases, that’s not true. “As I understand it, many states lost their rocks or have rediscovered them,” said John Gizis, an associate professor in the University of Delaware’s Department of Physics and Astronomy.
Indeed, at least 10 states and more than 90 countries have no clue where their rocks are located, and some may have fallen prey to black-market activity. In May, a California woman attempted to sell what she claimed was a moon rock for $1.7 million. The prospective buyer was an undercover NASA agent.
Perhaps the rock in question belongs to New Jersey, whose rock was discovered missing in 2010. Officials are still on the lookout for that bit of basalt.
Sometimes missing rocks are simply obscured by memorabilia. In 2010, Missouri unearthed its rock in the archives of retiring Senator Kit Bond’s office. Bond, who was governor when Nixon gave the rock to the state, apparently stashed it amongst hundreds of boxes of mementos and documents.
A governor was also the likely culprit in the case of West Virginia’s missing rock.
A dentist in 2010 discovered that the moon rock he’d found in his late brother’s possessions likely belonged to that state. West Virginia’s governor in the early 1970s was once affiliated with the brother’s law firm.
So where is Delaware’s piece of the Apollo action?
A Facebook posting prompted some interesting thoughts on the matter. Some referred to the website collectSpace.com, which maintains that the rock is in the state archives. The News Journal’s website, also noted that the rock is in the archives.
[caption id="attachment_12654" align="alignright" width="150" caption="Delaware's moon rock from the Apollo 17 mission (courtesy Delaware Division of Historical & Cultural Affairs)"]
Another Facebook post suggests ILC in Dover, which developed the Apollo spacesuit. (The company is located at One Moonwalker Rd.) Sorry, there’s no moon rock onsite, says company historian Bill Ayrey, but “it would be nice” to have one.
Someone suggested the Delaware Museum of Natural History as a repository for a moon rock. Wrong again. “We do not have a moon rock at the museum,” said Teresa Messmore, director of communications.
The University of Delaware does not have it either.
So where is the rock? It’s in a climate-controlled storeroom as part of the Delaware Division of Historical and Cultural Affairs’ collection.
Enclosed in resin and attached to a wood plaque with the flag, the unassuming rock is less than an inch wide and tall. “It’s kind of pretty,” said Ann Baker Horsey, the division’s curator of collections. “It’s black with white and grayish sparkles.”
Delaware’s moon rock is not the only bit of lunar lore that the state has possessed. It once owned pieces from an Apollo 11 mission. The ownership was short-lived. “It was stolen right off the plaque,” recalls Horsey, who was a young curator in 1976, when the theft occurred. She’s still upset over the loss.
ILC has also been exposed to opportunists. When the spacesuit worn by Edgar Mitchell, an Apollo 14 astronaut, developed a minor issue, it was returned to ILC for examination after the mission. “There were reports that people used Scotch tape to remove dirt from the suit,” Ayrey said. The tape was quickly confiscated.
“NASA,” he notes, “does not like that.” Taxpayer money funded the lunar landings, and no individual should profit from it, he explains.
And profit they might. Some estimates put the rocks’ black-market value as high as $5 million. The high price tag is partly due to the rocks’ origin. The value also comes from their cachet: It is illegal for individuals—even astronauts—to own them. (You can own a moon rock if it falls to Earth as part of a lunar meteorite.)
[caption id="attachment_12655" align="alignleft" width="150" caption="The plaque from which Delaware's moon dust was stolen (courtesy Delaware Division of Historical & Cultural Affairs)"]
The rock commemorates the race to the moon between the Soviet Union and the United States, then engaged in the Cold War. President John F. Kennedy laid down the gauntlet when he vowed that the United States would make it to the moon before the end of the decade. After his assassination, Kennedy’s wish became an obsession, Ayrey says.
The United States proclaimed victory on July 20, 1969, when Apollo 11 landed on the moon. Originally, plans called for Apollo 20 and beyond. The public’s enthusiasm, however, waned in the face of the Vietnam War and political unrest. An oxygen tank explosion aboard Apollo 13 and the crew’s harrowing return to Earth renewed interest. But, Ayrey says, it simply wasn’t enough to sustain the expensive operation. Apollo 17, which launched on December 7, 1972, was the final mission in the program. The rocks remain its legacy.
