The Alaska lunar sample displays are twocommemorative plaques consisting of small fragments ofMoon specimen brought back with theApollo 11 andApollo 17 lunar missions and given in the 1970s to the people of the state ofAlaska by United States PresidentRichard Nixon as goodwill gifts.
At the request of Nixon,NASA had about 250 presentation plaques made followingApollo 11 in 1969. Each included about four rice-sized particles ofMoon dust from the mission totaling about 50 mg.[1][2] The Apollo 11 lunar sample display has an acrylic plastic button containing the Moon dust mounted with the recipient's country or state flag that had been to the Moon and back. All 135 countries received the display, as did the 50 states of the United States and the U.S. provinces and the United Nations.[1]
The plaques were given as gifts by Nixon in 1970.[1]
The sample Moon rock collected during theApollo 17 mission was later namedlunar basalt 70017, and dubbed theGoodwill rock.[3] Pieces of the rock weighing about 1.14 grams[2] were placed inside a piece ofacrylic lucite, and mounted, along with a flag of the country which would receive it, that had flown on Apollo 17.[3]
In 1973 Nixon had the plaques sent to 135 countries, and to the United States with its territories, as a goodwill gesture.[3]
The Alaska Apollo 11 lunar commemorative wooden plaque display was on public viewing at the Alaska Transportation Museum inAnchorage in 1973. In September of that year, the museum burned down under suspicious circumstances and the Apollo 11 Alaska lunar plaque display was reported missing. It is suspected that anarsonist started the museum fire on September 6, 1973.[4][5][6][7]
Arthur C. Anderson, an individual Plaintiff v. The State of Alaska an Alaskan State Museums, and agency of the State, Defendants also known asAnderson v. Alaskan State Museums is an Alaska State civil case filed on December 20, 2010 by attorney Daniel P. Harris in the Superior Court of Alaska Third Judicial District at Anchorage. The subject in this case is theApollo 11 Moon Rock and plaque that was presented in 1969 byRichard M. Nixon, President of theUnited States, toKeith Harvey Miller, Governor ofAlaska.[8]
After a 2010 story written by Elizabeth Riker for theCapital City Weekly[9] Arthur Coleman Anderson learned that a Moon rock he says he found as a 17-year-old after a fire at the Transportation Museum in Anchorage filed a lawsuit against Alaska and the Alaskan State Museums to determine title of the object.[5][6][10][11][8][12][13]
The missing Moon rocks were returned as of December 7, 2012,[14] and both the Apollo 11 and Apollo 17 displays are at the Alaska State Museum in Juneau.[1][3]
