Everyone remembers those iconic images of the Apollo 11 mission in 1969. The launch
Eagle s touchdown Neil Armstrong s monumental first steps on the lunar surface and the splash
down back on Earth. But what s less well remembered is what happened to the crew in the first
few days of them returning back home.
On their travels, the Apollo crew had picked up a cosmic hitchhiker, its name moon dust.
Simply put, NASA had no real idea of what problems the lunar dust could cause once on
Earth, leaving them no choice but to impose a quarantine on the returning astronauts,
locking them down for 21 days whilst studies were conducted.
Take a look at this picture. This was taken during the first lunar landing by Neil Armstrong.
If you look closely at Buzz Aldrin s feet and knees, you can see moon dust collecting
on the outer layers of his space suit. This rang alarm bells for NASA scientists. The
tiny dust particles might have wreaked havoc among Apollo 11 s lander and command module
computer systems, or even worse, NASA believed there was a possibility of bringing pathogens
from the lunar surface back to Earth. Remember, this was 1969. The very idea of going to and
returning from the Moon was uncharted territory, so every concern was seen as a very real possibility.
To show you the extent of the moon dust problem, take a look at this picture of Apollo 17 commander
Gene Cernan. This was taken after Cernan s return to the lunar module, and you can see
how the lunar dust could literally get everywhere.
And this wasn t just limited to the lunar surface. This is NASA photographer Terry Slezak,
the first person to touch moon dust on Earth. Whilst unpacking film magazines from the Apollo
11 mission, Slezak accidentally became the first non-astronaut to touch the Moon.
So, NASA had finally put a man on the moon, but in doing so had brought back lunar dust
to Earth, which was seen as a potential problem by NASA. The solution quarantine.
Immediately after splash down, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin & Michael Collins were
passed biological isolation garments, known as BIG suits, to wear before being assisted
into a life raft. They were then scrubbed down with decontamination chemicals and transferred
to a mobile quarantine facility aboard the USS Hornet. Meanwhile, the Columbia Command
Module was wiped down with disinfectant to remove any lunar dust that might be present,
and the life raft used to transfer the astronauts was deliberately sunk.
President Nixon would greet the quarantined crew through a window in the mobile quarantine
facility whilst still aboard the Hornet, as the Apollo 11 crew settled into their home
for the next few days. They would then be transported to Ellington Air Force Base in
Texas, all the while still inside the mobile quarantine facility. Here, the returning astronauts
could finally greet their wives and families.
The final stage of their quarantine period was to be completed in the Lunar Receiving
Laboratory. This was a purpose-built NASA facility specifically designed with the lunar
quarantine in mind, and housed both the returning Apollo astronauts as well as NASA scientists,
along with the material and samples brought back from the Moon. This would allow the scientists
to begin conducting their experiments on the collected samples, providing them with the
ability to classify the Moon rocks and prepare them for further experimentation.
During this period, Neil Armstrong celebrated his 39th birthday, which after his record
breaking first steps on the lunar surface, must ve been a real back-to-Earth moment.
So, why did NASA go to such extreme lengths to quarantine the Apollo mission in its entirety?
Although small, the chance of the Apollo astronauts bringing a lunar plague back to Earth was
very real. Newspapers at the time reported of scientists concerns about this very matter,
and NASA wasn t going to risk anything which may jeopardise its crown jewel achievement.
The grandeur of the Apollo 11 mission is clear for anyone to see, so if a quarantine was
all that was required to prevent a bittersweet outcome, then it s a quarantine that they
will get.
Whilst in the Lunar Receiving Laboratory, scientists began conducting experiments to
verify that lunar dust poses no threat to humanity. This began with searching for signs
of microbial lunar life, and eventually took the bizarre twist of testing the effects of
the moon dust in live subjects. Notably, one experiment consisted of grounding up moon
rocks and injecting them into a live Japanese Quail.
As predicted, these experiments provided no evidence that matter from the lunar surface
was harmful to life on Earth, and so from Apollo 15 onwards, the quarantining process
was dropped.
So, is it okay for us to touch matter from the Moon? In a word, yes, but that doesn t
mean we shouldn t be careful. Through experimentation, a sufficient amount of data has been collected
to suggest that the Moon is void of all life, and therefore it poses no biological risk
to humanity. However, highly resistant microorganisms may well be travelling through the galaxy
and theoretically could be present in our solar system. It s even been theorised that
life on Earth arrived on a meteor carrying such microorganisms, known as the panspermia
hypothesis.
Using the precautious methods as NASA did all those years ago should be used as a blueprint
for future missions to other celestial bodies. A manned mission to Mars is not that far off
in the grand scheme of things, and a sample return mission to and from the Martian surface
will likely take place even sooner. With water having been confirmed to exist on Mars, the
chance of finding extra-terrestrial microbial life is vastly higher, and the fears of NASA
scientists from six decades ago may well resonate for centuries
to come.