"We can retrace the astronauts' steps with greater clarity to see where they took lunar samples," said Noah Petro, a lunar geologist for NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, who spoke at the images' presentation, according to NASA's press release.
In 1978, NASA lent a lunar sample disk to the Mount Cuba Astronomical Observatory in Greenville, Del.
Mr. Ary was convicted of stealing data recording tape from the Apollo 15 mission, an Air Force One control panel, spacesuit components, a lunar sample bag and personal items carried into space by astronauts.
Lunar subsurface sampling is one of the critical technologies in the advancement of space exploration, and a lunar sampler with low weight, small volume, and low power consumption would significantly reduce the cost of space exploration.
China's next Moon trip, Chang'e-5, will aim to return a sample of lunar rock to Earth, and is due to launch later this year.
It displays many famous artifacts of flight, including Charles Lindbergh's Spirit of St . Louis the Bell XS-1 that Chuck Yeager used to break the sound barrier for the first time, the Apollo 11 command module, and a sample of lunar rock.
In 2006, NASA gave Kraft the Ambassador of Exploration Award, which carried with it a sample of lunar material brought back by Apollo 11.
Just before leaving the lunar surface in 1971, he attached a 6-iron golf club head to the foldable shaft of a lunar soil sampler and whacked two golf balls out into the gray lunar distance.
These days at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, before visitors can see the Wright Brothers' 1903 Flier, Charles A. Lindbergh's Spirit of St . Louis a touchable sample of lunar rock or any other souvenir of humanity's bounce toward the heavens, they first have to pass through a reminder of that morning the sky fell to earth.
China's future plans include a new space station, a lunar base and possible sample return missions from Mars.
