Space Jocks & Moon Rocks

Sidedoor

Smithsonian Institution

Science, The Smithsonian, Tony Cohn, Art19, African American History And Culture, Exhibit, Dc, Exhibits, Pop Culture, Zoo, National Museum, National Zoo, Natural History, Air And Space, Smithsonian, Postal Museum, History Of The World, History, Sidedoor, Museum, Washington, Society & Culture, American History

4.6 • 2.3K Ratings

🗓️ 10 July 2019

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

When NASA’s Apollo 11 mission sent the first astronauts to the moon 50 years ago, there were many things we didn’t know. Like whether the moon’s surface would turn out to be a field of quicksand, if space germs would infect the astronauts, or what exactly the moon was made of. To commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing, we join forces with the National Air and Space Museum’s podcast, AirSpace, to explore the mysteries of lunar science: what we didn't know then, and what we still don't know today.

Listen to AirSpace, stories that defy gravity: airandspace.si.edu/learn/airspace-podcast

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is Side Door, a podcast from the Smithsonian with support from PRX. I'm Lizzy Peabody. You haven't touched it yet.
0:25.0	I'm letting the anticipation build, Emily.
0:30.0	It's time, Lizzy, I think, for you to touch a piece of the moon.
0:35.0	I'm at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum with planetary geologist Emily Martin.
0:41.0	The museum has just closed. Families of tourists are
0:45.0	clearing out of the cavernous flight hall and I'm getting ready to do something I
0:49.4	have definitely never done before.
0:52.8	Touch the moon.
0:54.6	Okay, I'm gonna do it.
0:55.8	Yes.
0:56.8	Okay, she's going in for it.
0:58.8	With her right hand, she's gonna touch it.
1:01.9	She's going for it.
1:04.6	What's it feel like?
1:06.0	Wow, it's so smooth.
1:08.0	It's very smooth.
1:09.0	It is smooth, but it's also small. It looks like an arrowhead, a sleek black triangular sliver of
1:18.6	moon. Not at all like the space potato I had imagined.
1:22.0	Did you expect like a piece of granite, like a big chunk of rock?
1:26.0	I expected it to be more like a pumice stone.
1:30.0	I expected it to be like kind of sharp and gravelly and grainy and I expected it to be
1:34.2	bigger at least a brick-sized piece of rock. Rocks are heavy. Heavy things take
	...

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