Snapshot
January 06, 2010
Former NASA astronaut Scott Parazynski, M.D., left, and current astronaut George Zamka hold bits of Apollo 11 moon rock that Parazynski carried, on loan from NASA, to the top of Mt. Everest last spring. They also hold an Earth rock that he collected while on the summit. Specifically, Zamka holds the "Nugget Containment Device," two Pringles potato chip can lids sealed together with duct tape, which Parazynski used to secure the moon rock samples as he summited Everest on May 20, 2009. In a ceremony held today, January 6, at Space Center Houston, Parazynski presented the rocks to Zamka, who will see to it that they travel to the International Space Station aboard the space shuttle Endeavour on mission STS-130, which he will command, scheduled to launch February 7, 2010. The rocks will then reside permanently in the Tranquility node on the ISS. The samples are significant in that Neil Armstrong, the first human to set foot on the moon, and Sir Edmund Hillary, the first to set foot along with Tenzing Norgay on the summit of Mt. Everest, visited the North Pole together by airplane in 1985. Parazynski and Zamka flew together on STS-120 in the fall of 2007, Parazynski's fifth and final shuttle flight and Zamka's first, a mission that delivered the Harmony node to the ISS. Parazynski, who retired from NASA in March 2009, is the first astronaut to summit Mt. Everest. Behind them is the suit he wore during his climb.
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