Talk:Moon rock

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 1 September 2020 and 18 December 2020. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Splash6815.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 04:27, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

could you sort it?
could anyone sort the table with missions? i think it should be in the chronological order. the date of landing could be added too..

More rock pictures
It's actually only one picture, but maybe it could be incorporated into this article, none-the-less?:

http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/AofEphotos.html

Alternatively, the link might prove useful if someone ever tried to create a list of where all known moon rock specimines are... TerraFrost 23:25, 2 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Unfortunately thats got pretty crappy images... the first is way more on the stand than the stone... and the second one is largely distorted due to its embedding in plastic.  ALKIVAR &trade;[[Image:Radioactive.svg|18px|]] 00:11, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

The NASA Lunar Curator at Johnson Space Center, Dr. Gary Lofgren, should be a good contact in terms of getting pictures of moon rocks. Another source is the Public Affairs Officer at JSC. The operator number at JSC is (281) 483-0123. These pictures are usually given without any strings attached. I have used a few in articles I have written. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Captain02 (talk • contribs) 19:08, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Theft from JSC
Current information here indic that among the thieves of the lunar samples from JSC, McWhorter is described as a NASA intern. Best information indic that he met Thad Roberts in Salt Lake City and (McWhorter)was never a NASA intern. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.23.54.203 (talk) 06:37, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Fake rock
The BBC has an article at - any suitable bad puns? Jackiespeel (talk) 16:06, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

University of Phoenix
This was deleted from the talk page with no response--I was under the impression that statements on the talk page were not to be deleted unless with the contributing user's permission or if the statements are libelous or harassing in nature.

It seems like this article relies heavily on repeating information about the University of Phoenix's Moon Rock Program--any chance we could clean this up to be a little less repetitive? I understand that Gutheinz has the credentials to back up his research, but the article is starting to read like a propaganda piece for the university. Libbybees (talk) 19:11, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

I am the person who has posted much of the theft page and I actually received input from Gutheinz, who I know, and a couple of his students in doing this. If it sounds like the University of Phoenix gets mentioned a lot, it is because they are the only institution where students have been hunting down moon rocks for 8 years, and finding them. Even NASA defers questions to Gutheinz and his students. There was actually a documentary that came out about their project on the BBC Two in England back in 2007.

I do repeat a couple of lines when I am introducing a moon rock a student investigated. The reason for this is when someone is interested in a particular state, I want to give the reader just enough information so that he does not have to hunt down the information elsewhere. I understand from Gutheinz that there is another major development coming, which I will post when it happens.Captain02 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Thefts needs own page?
It looks like this should be two articles to me: all the moon rock theft stuff could be split off to its own page? What do others think? -- stillnotelf   is invisible  18:59, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
 * WP:BOLD'd. --  stillnotelf   is invisible  21:03, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Contradiction?
This article says:


 * Almost all lunar rocks are depleted in volatiles and are completely lacking in hydrated minerals common in Earth rocks.

Lunar water says:


 * Water, and the chemically related hydroxyl group ( · OH), can also exist in forms chemically bound to lunar minerals (rather than as free water), and evidence strongly suggests that this is indeed the case in low concentrations over much of the Moon's surface.

Is there not some contradiction here? 86.128.4.93 (talk) 14:27, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

What story do they tell?
We collected rocks from the Moon because they could tell us a story. What did rocks tell us about how the moon was formed and evolved? In the article we have the story about how the rocks were collected, which is good. We lack the story about what we learned from those rocks.

Looking forward, when we return to the moon, how will moon rocks play into that future story? Are the rocks strong or weak, hard or soft, easy or hard to shape? Could we build structures out of moon rock? Can moon rocks be processed into other usable forms? Can oxygen be extracted from moon rocks?

All of which might merit a distinct article or articles, someday. At the very least a mention is appropriate here. We collected moon rocks to tell us a stories about the past and future. What stories did they tell us?

Along the same vein, the "Classification" section is nearly impenetrable. Too much "what" and not enough "why". Good to know what was found. Better if the article explained why each was interesting.

(How do we go about finding an expert on moon rock?) pbannister (talk) 20:18, 28 October 2009 (UTC)


 * I agree with much of what you say; I don't know about "can we build with it" (verifiability), but certainly much is lacking here about the geological story. And it's not really too hard to find some; Andrew Chaikin's A Man on the Moon writes much about the geological significance of the findings of each Apollo mission, as determined in near "real time" as a team of geologists who trained the astronauts, monitored their explorations and interactively communicated with them (through the CAPCOMs) as to what specifically to collect. The samples found on Apollo 16, for example, shot down their theories about how that region was formed because the astronauts simply were not finding the type of rock they expected. JustinTime55 (talk) 21:45, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

N1 rocket status
Regarding the Soviet Union's attempts to send people to the Moon, I changed "due to failure to develop" the N1 rocket to "due to launch failures of" the N1 rocket, and reverted saying "a rocket is not fully developed until it launches without blowing up." I would argue that the "failure to develop" wording is misleading, as readers would infer that the rocket was never completed. My version is less ambiguous. Perhaps we can agree an alternate wording if this is not satisfying to you either. — JFG talk 14:25, 4 February 2019 (UTC)
 * I guess I was reacting more to your edit summary claiming "N1 was fully developed", than what you actually put in the article. The assertion that the rocket "was fully developed" is laughably false, given the definition of new product development: development of a rocket is not complete until it is at least capable of flying without blowing up. In fact, development of complex technology such as aerospace vehicles is not complete (industry uses the term mature) until it has been in service a long time and most engineering problems which show up later have been solved. There is nothing misleading or unfair to the poor Communists (:-) about the statement that they failed to develop the N1 before they decided it wasn't worth the money and gave up.
 * Wikipedia exists to dispel ignorance, not to enable it. If we think the readers can't understand a concept (development), then we should explain it to them. We need to write up to accuracy, not down to the reader's misunderstandings.
 * That being said, let's step back and put this in the context of this article. The relevant subject here is the quantity of Moon rock returned by the Russians vs. the United States, not the development state of the N1. The fact remains Russia was not capable of returning significant amounts of material like the US because they could not land people on the Moon to gather it and bring it back (in turn, because they could not successfully develop a rocket large enough). I think the text should be altered to just omit mention of the N1, and read "The Soviet Union attempted, but failed to make manned lunar landings in the 1970s, but they succeeded in landing three robotic ..." The link to the Soviet crewed lunar programs will explain why they didn't land men on the Moon. JustinTime55 (talk) 16:29, 4 February 2019 (UTC)
 * This looks like a good solution. Indeed the focus of this article is not the intricacies of N1 development. I approve your recent edit. Thanks for the prompt resolution! — JFG talk 22:38, 4 February 2019 (UTC)