Looking at Moon Dust: An Apollo Artifact Comes Out of Storage

Watch as we open an Apollo artifact that has been sealed since 1973, just days after it returned from the Moon. During the Apollo 17 mission, astronauts Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt spent more time on the lunar surface than any previous mission. Gene Cernan, the last astronaut to walk on the Moon, brought a cover from his life support backpack home to Earth. NASA sealed the object and gave it to the Smithsonian, where it was kept in storage for 41 years. Staff brought it out to display it for the very first time as part of the new exhibition "Outside the Spacecraft: 50 Years of Extra-vehicular Activity."

How much lunar dust is preserved on the object? Conservator Lisa Young and curators Jennifer Levasseur and Cathy Lewis found out when they opened the object and placed it under the microscope in the Museum's Conservation Lab at the Steven F. Udvar Center.

"Outside the Spacecraft: 50 Years of Extra-vehicular Activity" is on view at the Museum in Washington, DC January 8 through June 8, 2015.
See the exhibition online at http://airandspace.si.edu/eva

Видео Looking at Moon Dust: An Apollo Artifact Comes Out of Storage канала Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum