You could, of course, sidestep this by postulating that more surface material was recovered in the later missions than was admitted by NASA.

The problem with this hypothesis is that it's possible to request from LRL pieces of specific lunar samples. Someone making such a request would expect certain characteristics in the sample. Further, most requests for LRL samples are for pristine samples that have not been used for any prior research or even exposed to air or light. Contamination and damage from prior research would be immediately evident upon examination.

The problem therefore becomes how to stretch those precious real samples for so long under those circumstances. If people are asking for specific rocks that has never seen the light of day, and they would know if their stipulations had been met, then you can't say it's just the same rock being passed around.


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: JayUtah on 2002-05-24 23:59 ]</font>