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Neil Armstrong's customs form for moon rocks (2016)

magazine.uc.edu

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Re: Neil Armstrong's customs form for moon rocks (2016)

#181

Post by throw8449485 »

GCA10 wrote: post #133
perihelions wrote: post #6

These things were mainly publicity stunts. The supposed biohazard quarantine for returning Apollo astronauts was a theater performance, too. https://www.livescience.com/space/the-moon/the-apollo-moon-l... ( "The Apollo moon landing was real, but NASA's quarantine procedure was not" ) https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/09/science/nasa-moon-quarant... ( "A review of archives suggests that efforts to protect Earth from con…

My father was one of the scientific Principal Investigators (PIs) who analyzed the Apollo 11 lunar samples, back in 1969. Flipping through some of his notes from back then, it sounds as if a rotating assortment of bureaucrats injected themselves into the chain-of-custody with weird and embarrassing effects. To wit: Some Agriculture Department folks decided that their legal authority to quarantine soil samples brought…

Ok, just some facts:

- moon dust has very fine particles. It is very irritating for skin, and there was a very good chance it could damage lungs like azbestos.

- Electronics and dust do not mix well

- electrostatic properties were not known, it could stick to every surface and coat it, perhaps prevent vacuum seals etc... Look at images from inside capsule, before and after landing! And that was just dust, brought on suits, not full samples!

- it had horrible smell

Re: Neil Armstrong's customs form for moon rocks (2016)

#182

Post by voidUpdate »

whycome wrote: post #70
elijaht wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ha, that was actually Apollo 13: https://www.visitthecapitol.gov/john-swigert-jr

If they said they were away on the moon that would be a lie.

I believe he was simply "abroad", which is true, since he wasn't in the US at the time (I think... How high do countries reach?)

Re: Neil Armstrong's customs form for moon rocks (2016)

#183

Post by lazide »

stinkbeetle wrote: post #163
dmix wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They insisted on building a three-week quarantine facility with slivers of lunar samples There was a ton of money flowing in for space and it was the big new thing of the future. Makes sense other agencies would try to insert themselves and try to seem relevant to the new popular thing in the news and latch themselves onto any future spending/authority.

Yep, government bureaucracy has always been horribly corrupt, incompetent, and self-serving, unfortunately.

Good thing corporations don’t have different divisions vying for relevancy by being super important to the new hotness (cough AI cough), and this is just the government being weird eh?

Re: Neil Armstrong's customs form for moon rocks (2016)

#184

Post by simgt »

stinkbeetle wrote: post #163
dmix wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They insisted on building a three-week quarantine facility with slivers of lunar samples There was a ton of money flowing in for space and it was the big new thing of the future. Makes sense other agencies would try to insert themselves and try to seem relevant to the new popular thing in the news and latch themselves onto any future spending/authority.

Yep, government bureaucracy has always been horribly corrupt, incompetent, and self-serving, unfortunately.

Bureaucracy is always corrupt, incompetent and self-serving to varying degrees. There is no way around it, it's a necessary evil for communication and organisation. At least governments in democracies have some form of oversight on them, there is less oversight in corporations or dictatorships.

Maybe an AI dictatorship would rid us of bureaucracy, but we'd both end up in a paperclip sweatshop.

Re: Neil Armstrong's customs form for moon rocks (2016)

#185

Post by jcynix »

GCA10 wrote: post #133
perihelions wrote: post #6

These things were mainly publicity stunts. The supposed biohazard quarantine for returning Apollo astronauts was a theater performance, too. https://www.livescience.com/space/the-moon/the-apollo-moon-l... ( "The Apollo moon landing was real, but NASA's quarantine procedure was not" ) https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/09/science/nasa-moon-quarant... ( "A review of archives suggests that efforts to protect Earth from con…

My father was one of the scientific Principal Investigators (PIs) who analyzed the Apollo 11 lunar samples, back in 1969. Flipping through some of his notes from back then, it sounds as if a rotating assortment of bureaucrats injected themselves into the chain-of-custody with weird and embarrassing effects. To wit: Some Agriculture Department folks decided that their legal authority to quarantine soil samples brought…

Hmm, did they check whether their shoes where clean? Mine always have dirt underneath when I return from outside ;-0

Re: Neil Armstrong's customs form for moon rocks (2016)

#186

Post by xtiansimon »

throw8449485 wrote: post #181
GCA10 wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My father was one of the scientific Principal Investigators (PIs) who analyzed the Apollo 11 lunar samples, back in 1969. Flipping through some of his notes from back then, it sounds as if a rotating assortment of bureaucrats injected themselves into the chain-of-custody with weird and embarrassing effects. To wit: Some Agriculture Department folks decided that their legal authority to quarantine soil samples brought…

Ok, just some facts: - moon dust has very fine particles. It is very irritating for skin, and there was a very good chance it could damage lungs like azbestos. - Electronics and dust do not mix well - electrostatic properties were not known, it could stick to every surface and coat it, perhaps prevent vacuum seals etc... Look at images from inside capsule, before and after landing! And that was just dust, brought on…

> “… moon dust has very fine particles…”

What’s more: “Unlike dust particles on Earth, dust on the Moon’s surface is sharp and abrasive – like tiny shards of glass – because it hasn’t been exposed to weathering and elements like water and oxygen.”

https://www.nasa.gov/centers-and-facilities/kennedy/nasa-tec...

Re: Neil Armstrong's customs form for moon rocks (2016)

#187

Post by garyrob »

GCA10 wrote: post #133
perihelions wrote: post #6

These things were mainly publicity stunts. The supposed biohazard quarantine for returning Apollo astronauts was a theater performance, too. https://www.livescience.com/space/the-moon/the-apollo-moon-l... ( "The Apollo moon landing was real, but NASA's quarantine procedure was not" ) https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/09/science/nasa-moon-quarant... ( "A review of archives suggests that efforts to protect Earth from con…

My father was one of the scientific Principal Investigators (PIs) who analyzed the Apollo 11 lunar samples, back in 1969. Flipping through some of his notes from back then, it sounds as if a rotating assortment of bureaucrats injected themselves into the chain-of-custody with weird and embarrassing effects. To wit: Some Agriculture Department folks decided that their legal authority to quarantine soil samples brought…

I don't know. What if there happened to me some unimaginable pathogen that Earth animal life had no way of resisting, and that multiplied rapidly in the presence of our kind of life?

Extremely improbable. Astronomically improbable. Virtually impossible. All that is absolutely, 100% true.

But given the stakes, similarly astronomically high, I'm not sure it didn't actually make sense to do a quarantine for a few weeks. Yes, I know the indium seals didn't work. But the fact that we failed to create a quarantine doesn't mean it was worthless to at least make an attempt. It cost us virtually nothing in comparison to the stakes.

That's my personal response, anyway, and reflects the opinion I would have expressed at the time if I happened to have been involved in the project.

Re: Neil Armstrong's customs form for moon rocks (2016)

#188

Post by peeters »

arrowsmith wrote: post #131
peeters wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Passports please! British paratroopers met by French customs after D-Day airdrop Err, D-Day anniversary airdrop. That headline has only one correct literal interpretation, and it's wrong (not ambiguous, wrong).

I don't know about the US, but in the UK you can definitely say "D-Day" to mean "an anniversary of the original D-Day", not strictly 6/6/1944. It's not wrong. Just like you can say "Independence Day" to mean July 4th of any year, not only the specific historical date on which the US declared independence.

Hmm I'll take your word for it that that's true, but I would say the examples are very different. Independence Day is a title/holiday retroactively created to commemorate the event (which apparently might not have even happened on July 4).

Whereas D-Day was something soldiers used to describe that specific day even before it happened. And you would hear things like "D-Day plus 23" to describe points in time, you wouldn't have to specify the year

So to me the Independence Day analogy is a little weak.

Re: Neil Armstrong's customs form for moon rocks (2016)

#189

Post by qwery »

simgt wrote: post #184
stinkbeetle wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, government bureaucracy has always been horribly corrupt, incompetent, and self-serving, unfortunately.

Bureaucracy is always corrupt, incompetent and self-serving to varying degrees. There is no way around it, it's a necessary evil for communication and organisation. At least governments in democracies have some form of oversight on them, there is less oversight in corporations or dictatorships. Maybe an AI dictatorship would rid us of bureaucracy, but we'd both end up in a paperclip sweatshop.

Paperclip sweatshop? I thought all three of us would end up in a paperclip.

Re: Neil Armstrong's customs form for moon rocks (2016)

#190

Post by Pigo »

throw8449485 wrote: post #181
GCA10 wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My father was one of the scientific Principal Investigators (PIs) who analyzed the Apollo 11 lunar samples, back in 1969. Flipping through some of his notes from back then, it sounds as if a rotating assortment of bureaucrats injected themselves into the chain-of-custody with weird and embarrassing effects. To wit: Some Agriculture Department folks decided that their legal authority to quarantine soil samples brought…

Ok, just some facts: - moon dust has very fine particles. It is very irritating for skin, and there was a very good chance it could damage lungs like azbestos. - Electronics and dust do not mix well - electrostatic properties were not known, it could stick to every surface and coat it, perhaps prevent vacuum seals etc... Look at images from inside capsule, before and after landing! And that was just dust, brought on…

I never thought about the smell.

Does it smell strong because of it's composition or because the vacuum of space has a strange effect on it? Like the particulates not dispersing enough?

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