|
Author
|
Topic: Moon rock in the White House Oval Office
|
Robert Pearlman
Editor Posts: 53930
From: Houston, TX
Registered: Nov 1999
|
posted 01-22-2021 12:00 AM
   
collectSPACE A moon rock in the Oval Office: President Joe Biden's lunar displayJoe Biden was three weeks from taking office as a freshman U.S. senator when the moon rock that is now newly on display in the White House was collected by astronauts on the lunar surface. Six terms in Congress, two terms as the Vice President of the United States and one presidential inauguration later, Biden and the lunar sample 76015,143 will now share the Oval Office.  |
RobertB
Member Posts: 282
From: Israel
Registered: Nov 2012
|
posted 01-22-2021 04:08 AM
And just like that... Biden has one of the best collections of Apollo memorabilia!  |
Mike Dixon
Member Posts: 1625
From: Kew, Victoria, Australia
Registered: May 2003
|
posted 01-22-2021 05:19 AM
Wonder what his focus might be on returning to the moon. |
Fra Mauro
Member Posts: 1739
From: Bethpage, N.Y.
Registered: Jul 2002
|
posted 01-22-2021 06:39 AM
That’s an important symbolic step to me. Hopefully there will be concrete actions as well! Don’t we wish we could all borrow a lunar sample? |
GACspaceguy
Member Posts: 3147
From: Guyton, GA
Registered: Jan 2006
|
posted 01-22-2021 07:58 AM
I believe a match set of the Apollo moon rock and an Artemis moon rock would be great. A brother and sister display. |
Jonnyed
Member Posts: 620
From: Dumfries, VA, USA
Registered: Aug 2014
|
posted 01-22-2021 04:00 PM
And it is almost 3/4 of a pound so it's no small sliver of a moon rock. It's pretty good size.Also, when you click on the newslink, I like the story of how Bill Clinton used to tamper down arguments in the Oval Office by pointing to the moon rock [different one]. |
sts205cdr
Member Posts: 759
From: Sacramento, CA
Registered: Jun 2001
|
posted 01-23-2021 06:29 PM
I seem to recall an early episode of The West Wing when President Bartlett was asked what he wanted to decorate the Oval Office. His initial request for the Apollo 11 capsule was declined. |
mode1charlie
Member Posts: 1486
From: Honolulu, HI
Registered: Sep 2010
|
posted 01-24-2021 12:00 AM
I might be reading too much into it, but it might bode well for Artemis that Biden sees fit to have a relic of America's first voyages to the moon in his office, as a reminder that that accomplishment is something we should honor by extending the endeavor to the current day. |
328KF
Member Posts: 1391
From:
Registered: Apr 2008
|
posted 01-24-2021 03:12 PM
Despite the NASA press release, I don't see this as anything more than a conversation piece for Biden, much like Clinton used his. And no one has stated categorically that Biden himself requested it. Maybe somebody will ask that question sometime.It's a nice decoration, though. |
ejectr
Member Posts: 2033
From: Killingly, CT
Registered: Mar 2002
|
posted 01-24-2021 03:32 PM
Exactly... |
Robert Pearlman
Editor Posts: 53930
From: Houston, TX
Registered: Nov 1999
|
posted 03-04-2021 03:15 PM
President Biden today (March 4) spoke about the moon rock, as he recounted during a call with the NASA-JPL Mars Perseverance team: I had a group of folks in my office not too long ago, House members, Democrats and Republicans, and was talking about infrastructure. And I have on my shelf in the Oval Office a moon rock and they walked over and said, "This is actually a moon rock from the moon?" And I jokingly said, "You ain't see nothin' yet, wait until you see what comes home from Mars!" |
Robert Pearlman
Editor Posts: 53930
From: Houston, TX
Registered: Nov 1999
|
posted 02-03-2025 06:00 AM
collectSPACE Trump administration removes moon rock from White House Oval OfficeWhether President Donald Trump still supports returning astronauts to the lunar surface remains to be seen, but one thing is for certain — the moon no longer has a place in his White House. A moon rock, which for the past four years has been on display in the Oval Office, was removed as part of the Trump administration's redesign of the West Wing's most high-profile room. A NASA spokesperson confirmed the moon rock is being returned to the space agency in an email to collectSPACE.  |
drifting to the right
Member Posts: 166
From:
Registered: Aug 2006
|
posted 02-03-2025 07:05 AM
Clutching my pearls. |
dom
Member Posts: 1107
From:
Registered: Aug 2001
|
posted 02-03-2025 08:21 AM
Did NASA not pay the tariff on importing the rock? |
Axman
Member Posts: 690
From: Derbyshire UK
Registered: Mar 2023
|
posted 02-03-2025 08:59 AM
Still got the Remington cowboy bronze sat there though!Him and Putin have a lot in common. Can't see Russia getting men back on the moon any time soon either. Maybe the President after this one can get a huge Ming vase set up on the Oval Office shelf... s/he can then swap it for an enormous moon boulder (or maybe even, tourist ticket access to the Apollo 11 LM descent stage). |
SpaceAholic
Member Posts: 5430
From: Sierra Vista, Arizona
Registered: Nov 1999
|
posted 02-03-2025 09:43 PM
There are 65,000 artifacts in the White House collection (vast majority stored off site). Only a small fraction can be displayed at any given time and each incoming president reshuffles the deck. Would not read to much into this. |
Robert Pearlman
Editor Posts: 53930
From: Houston, TX
Registered: Nov 1999
|
posted 02-04-2025 08:49 AM
Since publishing the article yesterday morning, I have seen a lot of comments on social media like yours Scott, and to a point I agree. The removal of the moon rock alone does not say anything about whether the moon is still the next destination for American astronauts. As of today, NASA is proceeding with Artemis as planned. That said, because there are 65,000 artifacts, nothing is added to or removed from the White House without some thought. Just as every president has, the Trump Administration made a point of highlighting the changes to the White House, this time in an exclusive for the Wall Street Journal. Interestingly, the status of the moon rock was not mentioned at all. Someone had a reason for removing the moon rock from the White House. NASA did not recall it, so it was the Administration's choice. That means something, but what, only those in the White House know. |
Ted Peterson
Member Posts: 16
From:
Registered: Jun 2024
|
posted 02-04-2025 12:42 PM
Whether or not a moon rock is on display, is a kind of sad commentary. Was just musing on this the other day. Estimates vary, but something like 2.5% of the entire US GNP was allocated to the space program in the early 1960s — to take a "clearly leading role" in space exploration. They succeeded. And then, inexplicably threw it away. The big four-bay VAB could crank out Saturn V launches fairly quickly. Over a hundred launches were envisioned. They built maybe 12 or 13? Sixty years later NASA is struggling to recreate 1968, a simple orbit around the Moon. Maybe I've mentioned it before, but it struck me that the institutional loss, the engineering capability trying to play catch up is profoundly sad. Starlink is way over budget, and way behind schedule. Maybe a moon rock on display is kind of a painful reminder of how feckless our politicians have become. |
Robert Pearlman
Editor Posts: 53930
From: Houston, TX
Registered: Nov 1999
|
posted 02-04-2025 04:55 PM
quote:
Originally posted by Ted Peterson:
...something like 2.5% of the entire US GNP was allocated to the space program in the early 1960s — to take a "clearly leading role" in space exploration.
Yes, but that was because space exploration was the weapon of choice of our enemy and it was a much more palatable choice than most other alternatives. The only thing driving U.S. lawmakers to send humans back to the moon today is that they don't want to wake up to the news that another country (read: China) got back to the moon first. But unlike the first space race, our primary competitor today is not simultaneously slamming their shoe on the desk and threatening to blow us out of the water. So our response is to start a moon landing program but to not sufficiently fund it so to be able to act quickly. This is not an engineering deficit. It is the lack of a blank check to make it happen. Had Apollo been under the same budgetary constraints, Apollo 11 would have launched in 1975 and then it would have been at the cost of canceling all of the other missions that were to follow it. That, and what Artemis is trying to achieve is more complicated (on several fronts) than what Apollo ever had as a goal. Apollo sacrificed safety and sustainability for expedience. If we get back to the moon with Artemis, the only way it will make sense to keep on going is if the system is reliable and there is an intrinsic reason to return. A single "Apollo 13" will cancel the program, otherwise. |
Ted Peterson
Member Posts: 16
From:
Registered: Jun 2024
|
posted 02-07-2025 01:50 AM
Apollo was a "dead end" from an engineering perspective, although it was an elegant solution to achieving President Kennedy's goal of achieving a landing before the decade was out. My point, politicians like to call just about any government spending an "investment," but Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo was the real deal. To simply end space exploration was clearly shortsighted. It is impossible to overstate this. It has been 60 years and we’re not breaking any new ... space here — they are trying to "Recreate '68" without much success. By now, tourist flights in orbit to the Moon should be fairly routine. Starliner has key problems with thrusters. Was supposed to fly in 2017, it is now 2025. Overheating. An issue we’re told, with teflon and obstruction. Maybe, as I’ve mentioned previously, this is the exact same problem they had with thrusters 60 years ago. I’m unclear why this is controversial? |
advertisement