It's only a rock!

I'm a geek and I embrace my geekiness!

I had the coolest adventure today. I was privileged to take a "behind the scenes" tour of the Lunar Lab at NASA Johnson Space Center. The education group I work with is doing research for an educational activity involving the moon's surface. One of our subject matter experts agreed to give us a tour of the lab where they handle and study the moon rocks brought back to Earth during the Apollo missions.

Okay so I'm kind of thinking... rocks behind thick glass behind security... how interesting could that really be?

To our surprise, the rock expert let us suit up. Booties, gloves, a white jump suit, a cap, more gloves and more booties. We all looked like a bunch of Oompa Loompas about to stir the big vat of chocolate! After a brief decontamination we walked into the lab. Now we were not allowed to touch any of the moon rocks, but they were there, encapsulated in big metal and glass boxes. We were however allowed to "experiment" in an empty box and check out some of the tools. Our guide had been through earlier with a group of scientists who were there to chose moon rock pieces for study, so we got to see some of the pieces of one of the moon rocks through a microscope. Wow!

Okay, I'm a geek and I hang out with other geeks. But when you really think about it, it's kind of humbling to think about that small hunk of rock sitting just within reach - it came from the millions of miles away! I was standing in a room with objects that were from the surface of the Moon and had traveled all the way back to Earth. I'm sorry if it's geeky, but I think it was really cool.

* The pic is me in the lab. If you look close you can see me waving with my left hand inside the box.