DOVER, Del.- A sample of moon dust from the Apollo 11 lunar mission was stolen from a Delaware museum in the 1970s, though recent discoveries of similar samples in other states have renewed interest in finding the Diamond State's missing moon matter.
In recent weeks, two of the rocks that disappeared after the 1969 mission were located in Louisiana and Utah, leaving only New York and Delaware with unaccounted-for souvenirs.
Delaware's lunar souvenir was stolen in the late 1970s and has not been seen since, leaving a rock sample from the Apollo 17 mission as the only moon sample in Delaware's possession.
"We still do not know the exact location," said Edward McWilliams, a curator with Delaware's Historical and Cultural Affairs Division. "That object at the time had been out on display and in the public museums."
Attorney and moon rock hunter Joseph Gutheinz says it "blows his mind," that the rocks were not carefully chronicled and saved by some of the states that received them. But he is hopeful the last two can be located before the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission next summer.
