How many Apollo Goodwill Moon Rocks are missing?

Genesis Rock: Missing presumed Lost

The Apollo program, for all its inspirational accomplishments and technical achievements, was a servant of two masters.

The first was a pure scientific enterprise, to learn as much as possible about Earth’s only natural satellite and to push the boundaries of human spaceflight.

The second was political, with Apollo acting as the most compelling symbol of American technical prowess, industry, courage, and will.

This dichotomy is embodied by the Goodwill Moon Rocks program.

A case can be made that no field of study benefitted more from Apollo than the science of geology. Of the approximately 430 kilograms of known lunar materials on Earth, Apollo astronauts obtained roughly 382 kg.

The vast majority of those samples have been used to further our understanding of planetary formation, geochemistry, and the physical history of our solar system.

However, not all of those moon rocks were recovered in the name of science.

Specific lunar samples from Apollo 11 and Apollo 17 were earmarked as political souvenirs.

Precisely 270 prepared lunar rock samples were distributed as part of the Goodwill Moon Rocks program, most of them going to the 50 U.S. states and a number of foreign countries as tokens of appreciation for support of Apollo, NASA, and U.S. interests.

The recipients were charged with keeping custody of perhaps the rarest and most valuable artifacts ever distributed for diplomatic purposes.

Four decades later, no one can account for a significant number of those 270 valuable, and nigh-irreplaceable moon rocks.

H1N1 Swine Flu; UK Government covering their backs and capitulating to pharmaceutical lobbyists

'Plan' to vaccinate whole UK for flu is a knee-jerk reaction from a beseiged government and political system, with dubious strategic or tactical value!

In what would be the biggest vaccination programme of the last 50 years, experts are already drawing up a priority list of patients to be given immunity before the bug becomes more virulent.

This is clearly a politically motivated ass-covering measure by the UK authorities, admitting defeat in the face of overwhelming odds.

It comes after the first British patient without underlying health problems died from the disease, taking the number of swine flu-linked deaths in the UK to 15.

Risk and Perspective
In reality the risk of dying from the influenza pandemic is very low. The number of casualties of this disease is also extremely low, especially if you consider the hundreds and thousands who die each year from smoking, diabetes and chronic heart disease. All of which are preventable. The greatest cause of death in the younger ages groups is still RTA's - Road Traffic Accidents.

The mis-use of NHS funds in the face of mis-diagnosed threat levels

Pharmaceutical donations

This move by the UK Government will further please the pharmaceutical companies and will bring a welcome boost to their dwindling profits. Hopefully, the political parties will, in return, be assured of increased funding and support in the coming years.