Curator’s
Comments
Gary Lofgren
Lunar Sample Curator
NASA JSC
A year has passed since the last publication of Lunar News and many changes have taken place here at JSC. Carl Agee has left the Astromaterials Research and Exploration Science Office to take the position vacated at the Institute of Meteoritics, University of New Mexico. Dave and Marilyn Lindstrom have left JSC Curation and Education, respectively, and spent a year TDY at NASA Headquarters and they liked it so well they have moved to Washington permanently. We wish them all much success. See related articles by Carlton Allen in this issue about the Astromaterials Acquisition and Curation at JSC.
Lunar samples made the news in a way we all hoped would never happen. A NASA Co-op student and 2 college interns were able to steal a safe with Lunar and meteorite samples from a research scientist’s laboratory here at JSC. The theft happened on a Saturday, when no one was working in the lab. The safe was missed by an employee the following Monday morning. Fortunately, the FBI recovered the stolen samples in a little more than a week. The 3 individuals that stole the safe and a fourth individual involved in the attempt to market the samples have been charged with conspiracy to commit the theft and sale of government property. The FBI launched an undercover operation in response to a series of e-mails offering priceless Moon rocks for sale prior to the theft. When the theft occurred, the FBI set up a buy and apprehended the individuals. The interns and the co-op student have all been fired. A year later we now know that the 2 interns were sentenced to probation for 3 years. The Judge determined that they were the least culpable. The fourth individual has been sentenced to 6 years in a Federal facility (for a Federal sentence a minimum of 85% is served before parole is considered). The NASA Co-op, the main perpetrator, has been sentenced to 8 years. Six Apollo space flight missions between 1969 and 1972 brought back 842 pounds of lunar rocks, core samples, and regolith from the Moon’s surface. Most of it is stored at the Lunar Sample Facility at the JSC. This theft did not occur from the Curatorial Facility where the bulk of the samples are worked and stored.
We have completed the samples allocations through March 2003 after receipt of approval of the CAPTEM-Recommended Lunar Sample Allocation Plan by NASA Headquarters. We received 14 sample requests for the Fall CAPTEM meeting which was held at the Lunar Planetary Institute on October 27-29, 2003. The due date for sample requests is available on our curation web site and is routinely the best place to find the current due date.
The transition of our Remote Storage Facility from Brooks Air Force Base in San Antonio to White Sands Test Facility in New Mexico was completed a year ago. Subsequent visits have shown that the facility is performing very well. A great deal of hard work was performed by the Curation staff, JSC security and WSTF staff in strategic planning and implementation of the plan for this move. The team has received a NASA wide group achievement award for their efforts.
A new effort has begun to produce a version of the lunar samples catalog on CD-ROM. This is a time consuming effort because in addition to reproducing the text, it is necessary to substitute original versions of the photographs for the CD version. There is no projected completion date, but we hope to have it ready in approximately a year from now.
The recent theft of lunar samples point up the need to return lunar samples for which there are no future research plans. To return samples check our web site for the instructions. Even if you are not planning to return samples soon, you should consider preparing the sample history forms (F-75, available on web site) for your samples in recognition that they will have to be returned one day.
CAPTEM’s lead baton has been passed to Dr. Gary Huss of Arizona State University as Glenn MacPherson’s 3-yr. term as CAPTEM chair has expired. See the article about the change in this issue.