To the Moon and Back

The lunar rocks brought home by Apollo astronauts reshaped our understanding of our Moon, the Earth, and the entire solar system. Gathering more lunar samples is one of the most important reasons to go back to the Moon. NASA’s Artemis program is enabling lunar sample return both by humans and robots, to places we've never been in some of the oldest, coldest places in the solar system.

In this lecture, Barbara Cohen, a scientist from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center will discuss the experiments conducted using lunar samples, what we have learned from them, and how we are planning for more.

This program will be presented in-person at the National Air and Space Museum in DC and will be streamed live on YouTube. 

ASL Interpretation will be provided and live captioning on YouTube. If you require another access service to fully participate or have any questions about accessibility, please contact NASMPublicLectures@si.edu. To ensure the best experience, please try to contact us at your soonest convenience.

About the 2024 Exploring Space Lecture Series 

Aside from the meteorites that fall to Earth haphazardly, direct analysis of the materials of the solar system has required explorers—both human and robotic—to collect and return samples from the Moon, comets, asteroids, and one day other planets. The four lectures in this year’s series will spotlight the sample return missions that have helped us better understand the origin and evolution of the Earth and other planets. View all programs in the series.