Utahans will have a rare chance to touch a nearly 4-billion-year-old piece of moon rock at NASA’s Driven to Explore traveling exhibit, a multimedia experience that immerses visitors in the story of NASA.
The exhibit will be in Salt Lake City at the Utah State Fair from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. MDT on Thursday, Sept. 5, and from 10 a.m. to 11 p.m. Friday, Sept. 6, through Sunday, Sept. 8.
The centerpiece of Driven to Explore is the opportunity to touch a lunar rock sample brought to Earth by the astronauts of Apollo 17 in 1972, America’s last human mission to the moon. The rock is one of only eight lunar samples made available for the public to touch.
Driven to Explore allows visitors to learn why we explore, discover the challenges of human space exploration and understand how NASA provides critical technological advances to improve life on Earth. The exhibit also details the accomplishments of the space shuttles and the International Space Station.
NASA is investing in the building blocks of a more capable approach to space exploration, including research and development aimed at increasing space travel capabilities. In addition to learning to live and work in space on board the International Space Station, where there has been a continuous human presence since 2000, NASA is building a new vehicle, the Orion spacecraft, to send humans farther than they’ve ever been before.
For more information about NASA exploration, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/exploration
