A man in Florida found a rock he collected on the Moon at home. A man has returned a moon rock he had at home.
The story is certainly incredible: a stone collected on the Moon during the Apollo 17 mission has been returned to the state of Louisiana, in the U.S., by a man who said he found the priceless artifact in a box abandoned who knows where in his home. Specifically, the space stone had been donated by former President Richard Nixon.
Where the moonstone traveled before ending up at the national museum
"I can't even tell you how long I owned it," the man confessed to a reporter who got on the case's trail. Originally from Florida, the protagonist of this story asked to remain anonymous and described himself as a frequent flea marketer. "I'm not even sure how much I paid for it," he continued, referring to the rock. "I buy the plates from which I make the wood to make the grips on my Colt pistols."
The story is certainly absurd and raises another question, regarding how a sample of moon rock would end up at a flea market. This last question, in turn, highlights a bigger problem, because it is indeed true that many rocks collected on our satellite have disappeared and no one knows neither how, nor when, nor why.
The mystery of the rocks given by Nixon, no one knows where they ended up
To be precise, there is talk of a relevant part of the 200 rocks from the Apollo 17 lunar mission that President Richard Nixon gave to 50 American states. In some cases the disappearance has been reported as theft, but other disappearances, and this is the case, among others, of the anecdote told above, simply do not have a convincing explanation.
Steven Maklansky, head of the Louisiana State Museum, the institute that came into possession of the space sample, said he has no intention of soliciting an investigation that delves into the rock's journey so far. All we know is that the rock's route would at one point pass through a resale, then through the Florida gun enthusiast's home, then through the museum, where it is currently located.
If there is a responsible party, in short, it will not be found. "I'm just glad it's back home," Maklansky said, cutting to the chase.
From the Moon, water may soon be coming, too, that's where we're going to look for it. And to facilitate the "shipments" from the satellite to the Earth there is who hypothesizes an elevator to go on the Moon.
Giuseppe Giordano