First samples from the Moon being delivered to LRL in 1969
The Lunar Receiving Laboratory (LRL) is a facility at NASA's Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center (Building 37) that was constructed to quarantineastronauts and material brought back from the Moon during the Apollo program. After recovery at sea, crews from Apollo 11, Apollo 12 and Apollo 14 walked from their helicopter to an isolation van on the deck of an aircraft carrier and were brought to the LRL for quarantine. Samples of rock and soil that the astronauts colleted and brought back were flown directly to the LRL and initially analyzed in glove box vacuum chambers. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) (established 1958) is the government agency responsible for the United States of Americas space program and long-term general aerospace research. ... An aerial view of the complete Johnson Space Center facility in Houston, Texas in 1989. ... Quarantine, a medical term (from Italian: quaranta giorni, forty days) is the act of keeping people or animals separated for a period of time before, for instance, allowing them to enter another country. ... U.S. Space Shuttle astronaut Bruce McCandless II using a manned maneuvering unit. ... Crust composition Oxygen 43% Silicon 21% Aluminium 10% Calcium 9% Iron 9% Magnesium 5% Titanium 2% Nickel 0. ... Description Role: Earth and Lunar Orbit Crew: 3; CDR, CM pilot, LM pilot Dimensions Height: 36. ... The Apollo 11 mission was the first manned lunar landing. ... Apollo 12 was the sixth manned mission in the Apollo program and the second to land on the Moon. ... Apollo 14 was the eighth manned mission in the Apollo program and the third mission to land on the moon. ... A helicopter is an aircraft which is lifted and propelled by one or more large horizontal rotors (propellers). ... An aircraft carrier is a warship whose main role is to deploy and recover aircraft. ...
The quarantine requirement was dropped beginning with Apollo 15. The LRL is now used for study, distribution and safe storage of the lunar samples. In 1976 a portion of the samples were moved to Brooks Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas for second site storage. Apollo 15 was the ninth manned mission in the Apollo program and the fourth mission to land on the Moon. ... Brooks Air Force Base was a United States Air Force base located in San Antonio, Texas. ... Downtown San Antonio as viewed from the Tower of the Americas San Antonio is a city in the U.S. state of Texas. ...
References
Lunar Receiving Laboratory Project History (http://ston.jsc.nasa.gov/collections/TRS/listfiles.cgi?DOC=CR-2004-208938) NASA/CR–2004–208938, 2004
25 Years of Curating Moon Rocks (http://www-curator.jsc.nasa.gov/curator/lunar/lnews/lnjul94/hist25.htm), Judy Allton
Construction of the lunarreceivinglaboratory was virtually complete by the middle of 1967; Hess held a press conference to open the new facility on June 29.
Laboratory managers prepared and sent to the MSC director a request to appoint an Operational Readiness Inspection Board for the receivinglaboratory.
While awaiting completion of the laboratory, scientists on the preliminary examination team and the lunar sample analysis planning team were busy defining their procedures and preparing for simulations.
The period of quarantine for spacecraft, crew, and lunar samples was considered to have begun as soon as the Apollo crewmen left the moon.
Lunar samples were collected with sterile tools and returned to the LunarReceivingLaboratory in a sterile environment.
Because the lunar material had existed for millions of years in an almost perfect vacuum, the physical scientists decided that the lunar samples should be transported to Earth under environmental conditions as near to those on the moon as technically feasible.
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