President Joe Biden has not yet revealed much about his space policy priorities, but space fans may realize that space is in his mind, thanks to an Apollo Moon rock that now decorates the Oval Office.
Why does it matter: The Rock of the Moon – lent to the White House by NASA – is on display “as a symbolic recognition of the ambitions and achievements of previous generations and support for the current approach to exploring the Moon to Mars in America,” according to a NASA statement.
Background: The Rock of the Moon was collected in 1972 by Harrison Schmitt and Eugene Cernan of Apollo 17, who “snatched this sample from a large boulder” while about 3 miles away from their lunar module, according to NASA.
- The rock – which is about 3.9 billion years old – weighs just under 1 kilogram.
- “The irregular surfaces of the sample contain tiny craters created as the impacts of micrometeorites have rocked the rock over millions of years,” NASA said in a statement. “The flat, cut sides were created in NASA’s monthly cleaning lab when slices were cut for scientific research.”
The whole picture: This stone is the second sample from the Moon borrowed from NASA’s White House for long-term display, according to Robert Pearlman, space historian and editor of Collectspace.com.
- In 1999, NASA lent the White House a lunar stone from Apollo 11 in honor of its 30th anniversary landing, when Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins and Buzz Aldrin visited then-President Bill Clinton in the oval office. .
- “The rock, at Clinton’s request, remained exposed in the room until he left office in January 2001,” Pearlman wrote.