Moon rocks from VHS’s object collection are now on display at the Vermont History Museum in Montpelier!

From the Vermont Historical Society

This spring, NASA is preparing to return to the Moon in a big way: the Artemis II mission, which will carry a four-person crew of astronauts to it for the first time since the 1972 Apollo 17 mission. They won’t land on it but will instead study it from orbit while they test out the hardware in advance of a future mission that will touch down on its surface.

VHS and Vermont has a small connection to this slice of history: we hold a pair of moon rocks in our object collection, goodwill gestures to the states and countries around the world celebrating the successes of the Apollo program.

To celebrate the return to the Moon, we wanted to showcase these objects for the public by putting them out on display at the Vermont History Museum in Montpelier!

On July 20th, 1969, Astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first humans to step foot on the Moon, a monumental scientific and engineering achievement that captured the world’s attention. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) landed five additional missions to the moon through 1972, before refocusing its priorities on other initiatives.

Apollo 11’s official objective was to fulfill President John F. Kennedy’s goal of “landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth,” and as part of the mission, Armstrong and Aldrin collected a total of 58 lunar samples, amounting to 21.5 kilograms, from Mare Tranquillitatis.

Three years later, the Apollo 17 mission, carrying Astronauts Eugene A. Cernan and Harrison H. Schmitt, landed at the Taurus-Littrow Valley on December 11th, 1972. This mission featured an extensive array of scientific objectives, and over the three days, both astronauts performed three moon walks, where they placed scientific stations, conducted seismic experiments, and collected 741 rock samples, totaling 110.5 kilograms.

While NASA’s astronauts returned with samples of the moon, they also took part in a long-standing tradition of bringing commemorative items along for the ride. The Apollo 11 and 17 missions carried with them a “flag kit”, which included small, 4×6 inch flags of most of the world’s countries and each US state and territory, which accompanied them to the lunar surface.

Following their respective returns to Earth, small pieces of the lunar samples and the flags were incorporated into commemorative plaques, which were then distributed to their respective states and countries. The Apollo 11 plaque features four tiny samples of lunar basalt embedded in a resin sphere, with the flight-flown Vermont flag mounted below it.

The plaques were a goodwill gesture to the various states and countries around the world, on behalf of the Nixon Administration. The text reads “Presented to the people of the State of Vermont by Richard Nixon, President of the United States” and “This flag of your state was carried to the Moon and back by Apollo 11, and this fragment of the Moon’s surface was brought to Earth by the crew of that first manned lunar landing.”

Many of these items ended up in a variety of state collections, and in 1970, Governor Deane C. Davis gifted it to the Vermont Historical Society’s collection. The Apollo missions that followed might have flown some commemorative objects, but it wasn’t until Apollo 17, the final lunar mission, that another plaque was commissioned and distributed to the states and countries in 1974.

This plaque contains both a flight-flown flag and a lunar sample, and reads “This fragment is a portion of a rock from the Taurus Littrow Valley of the Moon. It was part of a larger rock composed of many particles of different shapes and sizes, a symbol of the unity of human endeavor and mankind’s hope for a future of peace and harmony,” and “This flag of your state was carried to the Moon aboard Spacecraft America during the Apollo XVII mission, December 7-19, 1972. Presented to the people of the state of Vermont by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.”

The rock included in this object comes from a larger sample designated “70017,” and was recovered close to the lunar lander on December 14th. NASA describes it as a “medium-grained high-Ti basalt’ that formed 3.7 billion years ago in the Moon’s upper mantle, which was later deposited on the lunar surface around 220 million years ago.

This sample is thought to be from the last rock picked up during that mission, known as the “Children of the World rock,” and was dedicated by Cernan and Schmitt, who said that “we hope that this will be a symbol of what our feelings are, what the feelings of the Apollo Program are, and a symbol of mankind: that we can live in peace and harmony in the future.”

After the Apollo 17 mission, NASA cancelled the program, but repurposed some of its hardware for Skylab, the United States’ first space station launched in 1973. When NASA gifted Vermont the Apollo 17 plaque, it was accompanied by another commemorative object: a poster signed to the people of Vermont by Skylab astronauts Alan Bean, Owen Garriott, and Jack Lousma, who wrote “to the people of the State of Vermont for their contribution to making the dream of a manned earth orbiting space station a reality,” alongside an image of the space station and a flight-flown American flag and mission patch.

While it’s been nearly a half-century since humans have stepped foot on the Moon, that could soon change with the Artemis program. Artemis II’s crew of four, astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen, won’t step foot on the surface, but will instead orbit the moon and test out the hardware for the eventual Artemis III mission, which is expected to land humans on the Moon sometime in 2028.

When Artemis II takes off, it will continue one tradition from its Apollo predecessors: NASA is packing along another goodwill kit that contains a number of historical relics, such as a swatch of fabric from the Wright Brothers’ airplane, tree seeds, flags and images from other notable space missions, programs, and partners, and from all fifty states and territories, including at least one representing the State of Vermont.