Visitors will have the rare chance to touch a piece of a moon rock this weekend in a new NASA exhibit at the DFW Summer Balloon Classic at the Mid-Way Regional Airport in Midlothian.
A special preview of the exhibit is available for media from 8 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. Friday, June 20. The free exhibit, which offers a look at America’s program to return humans to the moon and travel beyond, will be open to the public 4 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. Friday; 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. Saturday, June 21; and 6 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. Sunday, June 22.
The centerpiece of the exhibit is the opportunity to touch a lunar rock sample picked up on the moon and brought to Earth by the astronauts of Apollo 17 in 1972, America’s last human mission to the moon. The almost 4-billion-year-old rock is one of only six lunar samples in the world made available for the public to touch and feel.
As NASA celebrates its 50th anniversary this year, the new exhibit allows visitors to see models of the new rockets and spacecraft NASA is developing and to learn how and why America will return to the moon. The exhibit also details the accomplishments of the space shuttle and the International Space Station. The display in the Dallas-Fort Worth area will be the exhibit’s first stop as it begins a journey around the country. For more information about NASA visit: http://www.nasa.gov/home
CONTACT: Jenny Knotts of NASA Johnson Space Center, Houston, +1-281-792-7671, norma.j.knotts@nasa.gov
