The Apollo 17 “Goodwill” moon rocks — not seen for three decades, presumed lost or even stolen — were unveiled Wednesday in a ceremony at the Colorado School of Mines Geology Museum.
“A rock from the moon is about as priceless as anything I know,” said retired Vice Adm. Rich ard Truly, the first former astronaut to head NASA. “Even though it’s teeny-weeny, it’s very symbolic.”
Tiny bits of lunar soil are enclosed in a golf- ball-size sphere mounted on a plaque that was presented to Gov. John Vanderhoof by astronaut Jack Lousma in January 1974.
President Richard Nixon presented a set of Apollo moon rocks to 50 states and about 160 countries, but many were lost over the years.
One set of Apollo moon rocks is in the state Capitol.
But the second set — valued at about $5 million on the black market — remained a mystery until earlier this year, when Richard Grif fis spent two months nosing around the state.
He was a student of retired NASA agent Joseph Gutheinz, who once nabbed a man trying to sell Honduras’ Apollo 17 moon rocks for $5 million.
Gutheinz, who now teaches forensic investigation at the University of Phoenix, challenges his students with the assignment of locating the lost rocks.
After The Denver Post ran a story about the mystery, the Apollo 17 rocks turned up in Vanderhoof’s home office.
The rocks will be on public display starting Monday.
“Of all the space programs, Apollo was the magic moment,” Truly said. “It occurred in a decade when not much good was going on in our country.”
The Vietnam War was heating up. President John Kennedy, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Sen. Robert Kennedy were assassinated.
“But for the first time, humans were leaving the Earth and taking that first look back at the Earth, that blue ball … which was a major start of our environmental programs in this country,” Truly said.
Mines president Bill Scoggins said looking at the rocks reminded him of the technologies that spun off from the space program — “ICU monitoring systems, medical-image processing and robotic surgery.”
For him, it symbolizes the future.
“The space program got people to open their eyes and dream a little bit,” he said. “Our mission in education and research is, ‘Let’s start dreaming again and see if we can’t make those big leaps forward in coming decades.’ ”
Colleen O’Connor: 303-954-1083 or coconnor@denverpost.com
