Four decades have past since Professor Ross Taylor from ANU analysed the first moon rocks – but the geochemist’s memories of that shard of history remain crystal clear.
It was his expertise in studying crystals – or, more correctly, tektites – which led NASA to engage Professor Taylor in the late 1960s as part of its team examining the samples of lunar rock and dust collected by the Apollo 11 astronauts.
Before Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the moon and returned with lunar samples in 1969, many scientists believed the surface of our natural satellite would be chemically similar to tektites.
These glassy rocks, found in several parts of the world, including Australia, were thought to be fragments of the moon blasted off by asteroid impacts. Taylor’s analysis of tektites had suggested they were terrestrial in origin but, until someone went to the moon to collect samples, no-one could know for sure.
Taylor was in the US for a conference on tektites in March 1969 when a colleague invited him to tour NASA’s Lunar Receiving Laboratory (LRL) in Houston, Texas.
The LRL was being hastily established ahead of the moon mission in July that year. Taylor must have made a good impression, as he was invited to help perform the first unique chemical analysis of the lunar samples.
The rocks and dust were rushed back to Houston after the Apollo 11 crew splashed down in the Pacific on July 24 1969. Given that these were the first samples of extraterrestrial origin deliberately carried into the Earth’s atmosphere, NASA was extremely concerned about potential contamination. Hence the LRL was a sealed facility. Taylor and his fellow scientists had to observe strict quarantine procedures before entering or leaving the lab. They were never to touch the samples directly, instead handling them with gloves inside glass boxes.
Now that concerns about the contamination potential of moon material have been laid to rest, Taylor reflects that the original safety procedures seem almost comical. He recalls having to don a gas mask several times during the initial examination when leak alarms sounded.
Undaunted, the scientists soldiered on wearing the bulky masks. They had little encouragement to stop. There was extraordinary pressure to make a quick analysis of the materials. A process that would usually take weeks of careful work was completed in just days.
Using an emission spectrograph instrument – where a rock sample is vaporised and the unique light signature of each element is captured – Taylor and his colleagues determined that the moon was unusually high in iron, titanium and chromium – a combination that signalled it was quite different from the rocks found on Earth.
Taylor says this weird chemical composition is enough for him to dismiss those people who still argue the moon landings were faked. “No-one would dream up a mix [of elements] like that,” he says.
The team’s results were speedily conveyed to NASA management and then to the world via press conference and the journal Science.
Today, Taylor seems bemused by the media hype around the 40th anniversary of the first moon landing, but acknowledges that public interest in space exploration is going strong.
He says all those people who contributed to the Apollo 11 mission and its post-flight analysis were aware of the importance of the event, but, “we were too busy to be nervous. Nothing calms the nerves like knowing what you have to do – and we knew what we had to do.”
