MoonFaker: Moon Rocks Revisited. Episode 4, Wernher von Braun in Antarctica. PART 5
1,083 views · Published 14 June 2011 · 4:20 · Indexed 27 September 2026
Channel: Jarrah White · 2011 · Science & Technology
The full title of this episode is "MoonFaker: Moon Rocks Revisited. Episode 4, Wernher von Braun in Antarctica and Lunar Meteorites Different to Apollo Samples". Don't you just love it when the full title won't fit in the title bar? During 1967 Wernher von Braun took a trip to Antarctica, a place where at the time meteorites were known to exist and also where micrometeorites were for some time believed to concentrate. In his 1967 Popular Science article, von Braun claims that he went to the south pole to field test the lunar rovers and other equipment. This explanation hardly makes any sense: there is no testing that could be done in Antarctica that couldn't be done cheaper and easier closer to home in either a large purpose built freezer or outdoors in the Alaskan winter. Propagandists still try to get as much mileage as they can out of the official reason for the trip, but as a last resort allege that the visit to Antarctica was some kind of vacation for von Braun and his lads! Propagandists tend to go off on various other tangents when on the subject of the Antarctica trip. Tangents that lead far off topic, but nonetheless warrant a response. Such tangents include the total number of official lunar meteorites found to date; whether or not there was enough to pass off as Apollo samples; when the first official lunar meteorites were found, etc. So we apologize in advance if this series seems to deviate from the subject of von Braun in Antarctica. And since we're on the subject of lunar meteorites in Antarctica, I'll take this opportunity to discuss lunar meteorites that are apparently "unlike any basalt from Apollo and Luna missions".
