Police moonstruck by latest protection case

Deepa Bharath

NEWPORT BEACH -- They have guarded presidential limousines in their

garage and stored automatic weapons for the Secret Service in their

armory.

But moon rocks?

Those have never found their way into the Newport Beach Police

Department, Chief Bob McDonell said.

At least not until last week when Austyn Fudge and Margaret

Buckingham, volunteers at the local Environmental Nature Center, arrived

nervously at the department’s front desk with two shining silver boxes

that each bore the inscription: “If found return to NASA.”

In one of those boxes were tiny samples of dust and rock scraped off

the moon and embedded in a Lucite disk and ensconced in another disk were

pieces of meteorites.

Both samples were on loan from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory to the

Environmental Nature Center and will be displayed for the first time in

Newport Beach on Wednesday at the center at a special Storytime Space

Night.

“But until then, we were told the samples must be in a very, very safe

place,” Buckingham said.

So right after they secured the boxes from JPL, they drove to the

Newport Beach Police Department to ask the chief if his department would

guard the rocks for them.

“It was a strange request,” said McDonell, who agreed to store them in

his own office safe box.

The samples sparked the interest of several officers in the

department, the chief said.

“When officers started hearing about it, some of them came up to me

and asked if they could see it,” he said. “These things are really very

interesting.”

Indeed they are. One of the disks, which contains the moon rocks, has

six samples collected from the moon on two different missions, in 1971

and 1972, which was the last visit to the moon by humans.

The disk has basalt, a black rock collected from the upper part of the

moon; a sample of breccia, which was cast out of a lunar crater during

its formation by meteor impact; highland soil and anorthosite, scraped

off the center of the moon; mare soil obtained by sieving a portion of

basalt; and orange soil that the astronauts secured at the southeast side

of the moon.

Three volunteers from the center were given the lunar disks after they

went through a two-hour orientation program in which they learned about

the disks and how to protect them, Buckingham said.

She said only two of 200 of these disks has been lost. One was stolen

from a NASA vehicle and another lost in the mail.

“These cost only $100 to make,” she said. “But their implicit value

cannot be measured.”

This is the first time these samples will be publicly exhibited for

the benefit of the Newport-Mesa community, Fudge said.

“Seeing a piece of the moon gets students excited about astronomy and

science because it’s tangible,” she said.

It is also thrilling for adults, Buckingham said. More so for those

who have watched Neil Armstrong take his first step on the moon,

Buckingham said.

“It’s special,” she said. “There’s such a magical feeling to it.”

FYI

The lunar disks will be on display at the Environmental Nature Center

from 6 to 9 p.m. Wednesday as part of Storytime Space Night. The event

will feature stories, activities for families and readings by special

guest Mary Letterman, principal of Mariner’s Christian School. The center

is at 1601 E. 16th St. Information: (949)645-8489.

* Deepa Bharath covers cops and courts. She may be reached at (949)

574-4226 or by e-mail at deepa.bharath@latimes.com.