NASA says space travel "rocks"

AUSTIN (KXAN) - July 20th will mark the 40th anniversary of the first human landing on the moon and NASA is already celebrating.

The space agency spent Thursday using satellites in orbit above the Earth to feed interviews and video to news outlets around the country. The focus of the feeds was on NASA’s Lunar Sample Laboratory where most of the 842 pounds of moon rocks collected over seven Apollo moon missions are stored and studied.

From the beginning, scientists in the "clean room" environment of the lab have dressed in protective clothing, to protect not themselves, but the rocks.

"When the samples came back, they went into quarantine with the Apollo 11 samples and we did find that there were no germs," said NASA scientist Andrea Mosie. Human hair, skin cells, dust and every other kind of imaginable contaminant, however, could seriously impact the ability of researchers to accurately study the nature of the rocks.

So they are held in an air-tight vault and moved in around in “pristine” tubes and cabinets. Scientists wear three layers of gloves to hold, measure and cut the lunar material.

The results have been promising, for humans, if not for the rocks still left on the moon.

"We have very good techniques now for extracting oxygen from the minerals on the surface of the moon” said NASA scientist Gary Lofgren. "And we can do that with solar energy."

That means NASA will be able to mine lunar rocks to produce oxygen for breathing and fuel. That process, however, involves a crushing future for the chunks of material.

"That mineral will have to be broken down into its components, into iron and oxygen, to extract the oxygen,” said Lofgren. "So yes, that mineral will be destroyed."

The study of the rocks is yielding other knowledge, as well. Lofgren says it’s now clear that a giant asteroid collided with Earth, sending unimaginable amounts of debris into space. The debris was captured in a ring, similar to the rings around Saturn. Slowly, however, it coalesced into a ball of rock and dust, we now call the moon.

Even a cursory look at the lunar landscape, he says, should send shudders up our collective spine.

"So we know now that it's very likely that some asteroid potentially could hit the Earth at some time in the future,” Lofgren said. "So I think it's important for us to plan and to think about how we might prevent that from happening."